Every school day for countless school days, he ate the same thing: a colossal, state-subsidized plate of schnitzel, rice, and gravy. A meal served to him by a kitchen staff that was a mix of Israelis from West Jerusalem and Palestinians from the neighboring village. Z felt warmly toward all of them. It was the kind of fondness fostered by loyalty and routine, and the nurturing inherent in being cared for.
Answering another question from the waitress, one punctuated by a guffaw, Z admits that yes, he falls easily in love with anyone who feeds him, and that when he finds a lunch he likes, he does indeed eat it every day.
He also admits that he is telling the story this way because he really wants her to grasp how important and special that place was to him, and how singular its character, because he wants her to understand how perfectly-evilly-perfect it was to blow it up.
“Do you get it? They’d have to have known more than the layout of campus. They’d have to have truly understood its mentality to think they had a plan. This killer went into that always vibrant, truly mixed, and truly welcoming space and set his bag down among young people. He set his bomb down among all those bright futures and walked away. In this terrible time of suicide bombers, this wasn’t a suicide. It was a bomb that needed goodwill to go off.”
“And you knew it was Farid behind it?”
“Instantly. Even before credit was taken. Even before the final body count was released. I knew who did it, and why he did it, and what it was in response to—barely a week gone by. I also knew that the Mossad would be back up on Farid in a heartbeat, that they’d be on him ten times as hard, and that they’d be ten times more thorough. It wasn’t the brother anymore. He wasn’t the mark. Farid would now be the one.”
“Isn’t that good, in a way? Considering?”
“Not if you banked on him being different. Not if you maybe sent him significant state secrets, to try and change the outcome for both peoples. And even if you made your choices expressly to keep that cafeteria from blowing up. I mean, how long from that attack until they find the things I sent him? How long until they’d be up on me?”
“So what did you do?”
“I activated my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“What else does a Jewish boy do when trouble is afoot?”
2014, Black Site (Negev Desert)
In his cell, curled fetal on the bed, Prisoner Z waits for the pill to kick in. He knows he’ll have to weather the next horrific stretch of panic before he finds any relief. He looks up at the camera over the door, raising an arm to give the guard the finger and then offering it to the next camera and the next. When he is done, he returns to his previous entertainment and recommences the digging of nails into palms.
Prisoner Z closes his eyes, letting loose a cascade of anxiety-driven thoughts that he fears will finally break him. He attempts a positive visualization, willing the medicine to take effect.
He pictures his brain’s receptors sifting through a river of molecules, plucking what they need from the stream rushing by. He struggles to make his whole self join in the effort.
Prisoner Z lying there, patient, patient, panning for gold.
The guard comes to visit when Prisoner Z is flat out, looking fully corpse-like. On the floor next to the bed, the guard sets two sweaty cans of Coke. Onto a prison tray, he dumps two servings of fries from their greasy sleeves.
“I brought ketchup too,” he says.
He presents the squeeze bottle to his insensible prisoner, and then, turning it over, he squirts a bloody puddle.
Prisoner Z stares at the ceiling, unblinking, his arm hanging limp off the side of the mattress, knuckles dragging the floor.
“I drove all the way to the steakiya,” the guard says. “With you knocked out, I wasn’t afraid to leave the shop unmanned.”
In response, no response. Prisoner Z does not stir.
“I know you’re alive,” the guard says. “It was clear from the monitors. Zombie-you looks different than dead you. Or, at least, I think it does, not yet having had the pleasure of seeing the real thing.”
It is to this that Prisoner Z deigns to respond.
“You, sir, have drugged me good.”
“I usually do give you point-two-fives. But I made a very sad face for the doctor, and he gave me the big-boy dose. That one was like a dozen of the usual.” The guard considers Prisoner Z and, feeling benevolent, admits, “Watching the feed, I did kind of wonder if I’d lost you. But then you were doing that thing you always do with your mouth.”
“I don’t do anything with my mouth.”
“Except that you do. Every time I dope you, you start with the dry mouth thing as soon as the pills start doing their job.”
The guard feels quite proud for knowing. He wants to make clear that Prisoner Z is not the only one in town smart enough to read people. The guard can also observe and take note.
The guard dips a fry in the ketchup and dangles it over Prisoner Z’s face. Prisoner Z tips his head back and opens his mouth to receive it. Before the guard even moves, Prisoner Z opens his mouth for another.
The third fry Prisoner Z takes for himself, levering himself into a seated position.
“Was that so hard?” the guard says, fishing the backgammon board from his backpack. “Now why not drink your soda before it turns hot. We can play a couple of games. You can take advantage of your winning streak.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, does it, if the game’s never going to end?”
“You don’t know it won’t,” the guard says, cheerful. “You can’t tell what the future will bring. Maybe you’ll be rescued tomorrow. Maybe the Palestinians will finally conquer us and make you ambassador to France. In the meantime, why not throw some dice and move a few checkers around?”
“I’ll never forgive you,” Prisoner Z says.
“‘Never’ is a very long time.”
“Did you even pass on my letters? All these years, and me pleading with a dead man. And you, letting me write him.”
“I gave every one to my mother, as promised. Also, he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even in a coma. They called it a semiconscious state—it’s different. They think he was listening. She read him every one.”
“So that’s you telling me you’re a man of your word?”
“Aren’t I? I mean, what’s the difference? The General’s response, healthy or sick, alive or dead—it’s been kind of the same for you. He put you here to stay.”
“It’s kind of not the same. It’s kind of earth-shatteringly different. You should have told me so I could have adjusted my strategy.”
The guard shakes his head, it’s so sad.
“What could you do from in here?”
“I’d have pressed you harder to make me exist again.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“And you know that’s not true. You could make noise. If not from inside the system, you could have gone to the papers. You still can.”
“If I do, they’ll either censor the story or label me a conspiracy theorist, or a madman, or a drunk. They’ll either humiliate me out there or toss me in here. We’d be roommates.” Looking around at what is no better than a dungeon, the guard corrects himself. “Well, not in-here, in-here, but maybe in a real cell in a real prison. They’d give me a few years to ponder the bigness of my mouth.”
“What’s a few years to try and undo a life sentence that no one has had the dignity to hand down?”
“Okay,” the guard says.
“‘Okay’ what?”