The Marsh Angel, Hagai Dagan [free e reader .TXT] 📗

his head. He could vaguely hear Yaki’s voice, off in the distance. I don’t have eyes on both targets, he said.

Then shoot her and wound him! Oz snarled.

I’m waiting for him to get in my frame, Yaki answered. His voice sounded alert, yet collected.

They’re both going to be out of your frame in a second! Oz flared up.

Yaki didn’t answer, and didn’t shoot.

Alright, Oz said and threw his earpiece to the ground angrily, I’m going in. He put on a black woolen hat, fixed a silencer on the gun placed beside him, shoved it into the back of his pants and stormed out of the van. Stay here! he ordered Tamir. And tell Yaki to cover for me.

Tamir didn’t tell Yaki a thing. Suddenly, he saw everything clearly. He realized that it wasn’t Polnochi who needed to save him, it was he who needed to save Polnochi. He muted the microphone on his earpiece, took out the phone he bought in Alserstrasse, pulled out the note Dallal gave him in the church, and dialed the number. He could see Dallal saying something to Rajai on the screen, seemingly apologizing, and picking up the receiver of a telephone by the couch.

It’s me, he said, get out of there now! He saw her get up, say something, and disappear from the picture. A few seconds later, Rajai came into the frame with a pistol drawn. Tamir figured he must have heard Oz trying to break the door down, or perhaps Dallal had warned him. Oz appeared, the sound of a gunshot resonated all the way to Tamir in the van, and Oz dropped to the ground. Tamir heard Yaki swearing through his earpiece. He heard the sound of Yaki’s rifle going off, whose resonance was muffled by the sound suppressor. Rajai was cast violently to the ground as if he’d been hit by a car. Meanwhile, Oz slowly staggered back up to his feet. Tamir knew he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He steadied the gun in his hand and left the frame.

It was clear to Tamir that he was going after Dallal. He threw away his earpiece, got out of the van and cast his eyes on the red-brick house down the street. The van was parked up the street in an elevated position vis-à-vis the house, which was almost completely hidden behind trees. From his vantagepoint, Tamir could only see part of the patio and of the roof. The roof was broad and flat, and a garage-like structure a was erected on top of it. The cold rain pounding down on Tamir mixed with the blood still flowing from his nose and mouth. He didn’t stop to put on his jacket before leaving the van. He staggered down the street, trying to get a better view of the house.

Dark clouds loomed above him. Lightning ripped through the sky. A deafening thunder roared, shaking the tranquil neighborhood. For a moment, Tamir felt as if he had lost his hearing. He started running towards the house, but stopped in his tracks a few steps later. Something stirred on the roof. He wiped the rain from his eyes. Yes, on the roof. The wall. No, it’s not a wall, it’s a door, the kind that tilts up and back across the ceiling. The door slowly opened. What’s going on there? Tamir strained his wet eyes to see through the curtain of rain. His heart anticipated what his eye were about to see, but still, he could not believe it.

The Ultralight glider emerged from the structure on the roof like a fetus from an unexpected pregnancy. It was shimmering, its body made of sleek, silver metal, its wings painted gray and green, perhaps the colors of the marsh, Tamir thought. The glider rolled along the roof like a short launching pad, and took off into the dense, ashen winter sky. At that moment, Oz appeared on the roof and started firing at the glider. It was hard to tell whether he had hit it. Probably not. Tamir heard several more shots fired from the roof Yaki was lying on, but the glider soared to the sky, directly above Tamir. The Ultralight batted its wing once, perhaps mockingly, perhaps as an honest farewell. Something flashed from it, falling to the earth not far from where Tamir was standing. The glider flew higher and higher, disappearing into the clouds above the Viennese forest.

Tamir approached the spot where the tiny flash landed, and bent over the side of the road. Something was shimmering on the ground. He reached down and picked up a silver necklace from the mud. He wiped the mud on the sleeve of his shirt and read the refined, spiraling Arabic letters of the pendant:

The stint remembers.

Goodbye, Dallal, Tamir muttered, his eyes wet from the rain.

22.Shas — An ultra-Orthodox political party, representing primarily the traditionalist and ultra-Orthodox Mizrahi-Jewish population.

23.Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai — Two schools of thought operating in the Land of Israel during the first century C.E., named after the Jewish scholars Hillel and Shammai. The schools were divided on matters of ritual practice, ethics, and theology: the House of Shammai tended to be stringent and severe, while the House of Hillel tended to be more lenient and tolerant. Jewish law for the most part accepted the views of the House of Hillel, thereby producing the expression, “rule by Beit Hillel”.

24. Anta min Arab al-Ghawarneh? — The sentence can be understood in two ways: (a) “Are you from the Bedouin tribe of Arab al-Ghawarneh?”; (b) “Are you from a settlement called Arab al-Ghawarneh?”

EPILOGUE

After Vienna, the Tel-Aviv winter seemed pale, faltering, unfocused, a cheap imitation of winter, a second-hand winter in decent condition. Tamir climbed up the stairs of the building on Berdichevsky Street and knocked on the door.

You look good, Afik said as she opened the door.

So do you, he replied, almost as a matter of course, but he then studied her and thought to himself that she really