The English Teacher by Yiftach Reicher Atir Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m getting ahead of myself. We were at the end of one road and at the start of another.” Ehud interrupted the flow of his speech for a moment and waited until Joe nodded that he was waiting for the rest. “Three months before that they sent her to me from Israel so I could prepare her for the assignment. ‘She’ll be your operative, and from now on she’s your responsibility,’the Unit commander told me, and he showed me her file. I remember sitting with him in an empty café in a grubby little piazza in Rome at the height of a stifling summer, and I felt the setting didn’t suit this kind of operation. I imagined being summoned to headquarters in Israel, going into the commander’s office late at night to be told there’s something only I could do; I was supposed to size up the matter carefully, solemnly, and the commander was supposed to persuade me, and then I would agree, of course. That wasn’t how things worked out, but I forgave him because I was glad to have an operation of my own again, something that would be my responsibility from A to Z, the way we teach it on the operational course.
    â€œI was a veteran case officer then and a perpetual candidate for the post of department head. ‘He’s better suited to work in the field,’ they wrote in my file every time they bypassed me in the round of appointments, and you too said something similar when you sent me away on a three-year exile to Africa. And you know what? I adapted to it and I admit it suited me. I enjoyed being abroad and working with the operatives. There’s a kind of enchantment that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it himself. You’re master of your fate and everything depends on you, and at the same time you really feel that the nation of Israel is behind you. I became used to this way of life, and I always agreed to long assignments in Europe. Rina was at home then with the children. They were young and our parents helped her. I know it was harder for her than it was for me, and telling her that the state was calling me must have seemed to her inadequate compensation.
    â€œI asked the commander about Rachel and wondered why he decided to take me off the boring assignment I was on at the time. He told me that after two months of working on a Canadian cover with her case officer, it seemed she was falling in love with him, so theydecided to replace him. Just like that, all at once. ‘She’ll have no problems with you,’ the commander said. I was offended, of course: What kind of a man, however old he may be, doesn’t want to be fancied and flirted with? I envied the case officer who left her and I admired his professionalism. He knew it wasn’t healthy, and of course it was forbidden. So he separated from her, using the excuse of another urgent mission, and they passed her on to me.
    â€œI met her in Brussels. I told her to rent a small room on a short-term basis and we would meet in cafés and museums. She told the family she rented from that she was taking a long vacation in Europe, and I devised a story about being a bachelor businessman courting an attractive young woman. No one checked us out or asked what someone like me was doing with her. Brussels is an ideal place for romances like this. The city is overflowing with diplomats wasting their time in the various international organizations, and after hours they’re looking for someone on the side. I gave her a few days to get settled and then took her for dinner at a very expensive restaurant. She turned up wearing an odd outfit—some kind of overalls—and she stood out with her beauty and the sense of unease that she projected. I was disappointed that she wasn’t professional enough to check what kind of a restaurant we were going to and wear appropriate clothing, and I had the impression that despite the high marks she scored in training, she was still like a