The English Teacher (10 page)

Rachel walked up to Stefan and hugged him from behind, kissed the back of his neck, gave the bellboy five dollars, and watched him leave the room. Stefan freed himself from her embrace the moment the door was closed and sat down on the bed. The springs groaned under his weight, his outstretched legs almost reached the end of the
room, and he looked at her like a hunter watching a rabbit caught in the headlights of his car.

T
OWARD EVENING
THEY STROLLED IN TH
E
city. The trail from one tourist site to the next enabled them to check the escape route and the local traffic intersections. She marked the traffic lights and the one-way streets on the tourist map, and dropped the map behind a low wall before entering the hotel. Ehud wanted mapping for the benefit of the evacuation team due to arrive the next day, and another operative, waiting in a nearby hotel, retrieved the map and took it to the command yacht. Ehud was proud of the clean job executed by his young protégée. “Rachel's performance was exemplary,” the other operative reported. She had hung on Stefan's arm, given him adoring looks and kisses, and anyone observing them, whether casually or professionally, would've taken her for a young bride in love. “Stefan succumbed to her charms too,” the operative said, and described how Stefan's big arm had wrapped around her waist as if she were his prisoner. Ehud took care to keep a professional expression on his face and didn't reveal his feelings. “You must behave like newlyweds, they're the only ones allowed to do silly things,” he told them at the preliminary briefing, and now they're doing their job.

They ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and walked up the stairs back up to their room, kissing after every landing. With this the preparations were complete, and all that remained was to wait and stare at CNN, the only channel in English. The Unit commander didn't want them moving around outside any more than was necessary: “You're a married couple. You can stay in the room and do what young people do.”

S
HE REMOVED THE
COVERLET FROM THE
bed and saw, as she expected, there was only one blanket, the normal arrangement for a double bed, and she contacted reception. The clerk told her there were no extra blankets. “Sorry, Mrs. Brown, they are all in the laundry, perhaps tomorrow.” Rachel laid the suitcase down by her side of the bed and pulled out her nightgown. “Only tarts sleep in T-shirts,” she said, and told him this was what her father said when he saw her going to the bathroom in the night. Stefan pretended not to hear, but afterward he mentioned this in his report. “A strange thing for her to say,” he wrote, and didn't elaborate.

The moment of truth arrived. It was clear that everything depended on her. Stefan sat on the single chair in the room and looked at her as she stood holding the nightdress up to her chest, like the last line of defense. She was silent and he was silent, and the noise of the street beyond the curtain and the double-glazed window was hushed too, waiting for their next move. She thought of Oren, left behind in another world, the world of Rachel Ravid from Israel. She stood in the alien hotel room and thought of the apartment in the capital city that belonged to Rachel Brooks, and she knew that now she must do what Angie Brown would do in her place. She asked Stefan what he expected to happen. “Nothing,” was his brief answer. “We'll go to bed, get as much fun out of it as we can, and go to sleep.” “And is there another way?” she asked in a tone that sounded strange to her. “Like, you sleep on your side and I on mine, end of story.” “If you want to give me a hand job, or use your mouth, whatever suits you best, that's fine by me too,” he replied. She refrained from asking if that was how things were on the farm. Before turning in, does he pick out a heifer
from the herd, or a mare from the stable, and that's the only way he can sleep?

“No,” she said, and felt so small in comparison to him, like a novice taking a test that's beyond her. “That isn't going to happen. I don't want you and this wasn't part of the deal. You'll wait until I go to bed and then you can go and masturbate in the shower to your heart's content. Then come back and sleep beside me and don't touch me.” It seemed to her he was enjoying the conversation, he liked being crude and arrogant and sure of himself. As it was on the kibbutz, where all the female volunteers wanted to go with him out into the countryside, to ride a horse, feel close to nature, and be screwed by him on the hard ground in the shack that he built for himself next to the barn. “You'll see,” he said to her indifferently. “Better to do it and be done with it. It's only sex between consenting adults. This isn't an affair—there's no beginning and no end, just the middle. It's better that way, it releases the tension. But I'll do whatever you want, and I'll lie down beside you, and we'll both lie awake until you decide for yourself you're going to touch me, and everything will be fine.”

Then she knew he was right and she was even angrier at herself. She lay beside him tense and frozen and listened to his breathing and felt the warmth of his body and smelled his smell, till she realized if she didn't give in to what was burning in her, she wouldn't be capable of thinking about anything else, and then she touched him. Afterward, she hated him for the lifelessness of the experience, for the condom that he put on with such proficiency, for the way he loomed over her and the way he turned his back on her afterward. “We have a hard day ahead of us tomorrow,” he said before he fell asleep, and she lay on her back, put on the panties she had left on the bedside table, and pulled down her rumpled nightgown.

T
OWARD MORNING HE WANTED HER AGAIN.
This time it was enjoyable. His heavy body covered her and she felt safe under his bulk. She didn't come and didn't even try to come. She gave him what he wanted and he gave her the confidence she was looking for. He won't betray her. He won't leave her behind if something goes wrong. Not after he slept with her and kissed her and caressed her with such tenderness. He dozed again, like a baby satisfied after a feed. A few hours from now they will have half a minute to carry out an operation that has been put together during the long weeks that elapsed since she was called away from the school and from the tranquil life she created for herself there. It seemed strange to her to think of the excursions and the lookouts as something easy and normal, but life has rhythms of its own and after some time she got used to the routine, and the sense of danger diminished. She actually enjoyed the teaching, enjoyed exploring the markets, and enjoyed the independence she felt within the parameters laid down by Ehud. She no longer thought that someone was listening to her, that the Mukhabarat was on her trail, she understood the environment in which she was working, and felt confident of her ability. And she knew this evening would be different. She'll have to wait in the lobby until the target arrives with his bodyguard beside him, follow them into the lift, flashing her most winsome of smiles, and tap in the number of the lift on the transmitter concealed in her purse. She'll apologize and press the button for her floor, and she'll make sure, as only a woman knows how, to have the bodyguard backed into the corner of the lift, behind her. When the door opens Stefan will be there, ready to do his job. She must not fail, and she must not move. Stefan will shoot the target and then the bodyguard. It won't be easy, and there's a chance she'll be hit. Now, lying in bed,
she felt more confident. She played with his fingers and stroked his nails, with the traces of the farm embedded deeply beneath them.

When the dawn lit up one of the corners of the room she carefully extricated herself from the bed, picked up the makeup case, which she made a point of keeping close at hand, and padded naked to the bathroom. She felt him watching her, quickened her pace, and closed the door behind her. When she came out, a towel was wrapped around her and she asked him to look away while she dressed.

Stefan held out a hand and touched her. She didn't think it was going to happen again, but until the evening they would have time on their hands. In her case there was a book, and she knew she'd be incapable of reading anything. She wanted to talk. She wanted him to look at her, touch her, assure her that his bullets won't miss their mark—he owes her that much. Once the two targets are dead, they'll go to their room at the end of the corridor, Stefan will break the glass window, and they'll go down the fire escape to a vehicle waiting for them. If there are people in the corridor, Stefan will scare them away, and the security staff will be held up for some time by the door, which will be locked from inside. And despite all the planning and the training, of course things could still go horribly wrong. Stefan is a big and strong man, experienced and armed and coolheaded, and for her this is the first operation. “You're not to move,” Stefan told her in the briefings. “I can take out the bodyguard as long as you don't move. One moving target is enough.” But she knew the silencer would muffle only part of the sound and the bodyguard might grab her and use her as a shield, and from the moment the door opened it all depended on Stefan, who was now lying in the bed barely covered by a sheet and fiddling with the remote control.

“How can you?” She sat down beside him in her clothes, as he put a hand on her knee. She tried to choose her words with care. They were both professionals and they knew it was forbidden to discuss
operational matters in the room, and they had also learned how to conceal what they meant to say. “How can you lie here as if you're bored, having screwed me twice, and look for an interesting program on the TV, when you know what's at stake for us this evening, and it's a deal that might not come off?” Stefan wanted to tell her you get used to it, with time it gets easier, and anyway there's nothing he needs to be doing now, but he restrained himself.

“S
HE'S TOO YOUNG AND SHE HAS
no experience,” Stefan said to Ehud, back in the holiday apartment in Sicily, rented for the time when they were preparing for the operation. Rachel had gone into her room to change her clothes for the final dress rehearsal, and he took the last opportunity to try and change the decision to use her.