more their flesh expanded to fill the void. Inside her pocket, she fingered a small pocketknife and a can of pepper spray. In her imagination, she could already see herself bloody and undressed in compromising positions.
Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. She shrugged, feeling her excitement mount. As her parents had always warned her, this was not a job for a nice Jewish girl. Which is why she loved it so much.
The cars stopped, and the men jumped out, screaming. Someone pulled at her sleeve, but Ismael slapped away his hand and shouted at him. After that, she was allowed to make her own way out of the car. She had no clue in the world where she was. Amman or Damascus or a suburb of Jerusalem, all were equally plausible. The house in front of her was a mansion built in the Arab style with glowing pink stone and multicolored marble floor tiles surrounded by an intricate pattern of hand-painted tiles. Formal gardens with charming fountains sprayed cooling water into the air, and the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle mingled in the vine-covered portico leading to the front doors.
Terrorism was obviously quite an upscale career choice in this part of the world, she thought, looking around with a mixture of grudging respect and utter contempt. She was led inside and asked to wait. The living room was tiled with black, white-veined marble; low, built-in couches covered with red Persian carpeting and large, hand-embroidered pillows lined the walls. Enormous bronze trays held pistachio nuts, dates, figs and almonds. A woman covered from neck to ankle in the traditional dark outer coat, her hair completely swallowed by a tightly wound head scarf, brought out a tray with a bronze tea kettle, porcelain cups and gluey semolina flour cakes, thick with honey. The woman poured with silent graciousness, indicating achair and table. Julia nodded her thanks, sitting down and taking a polite bite and sip. Her role completed, the woman withdrew as silently as she had appeared, but not before favoring Julia with a lovely smile.
Charming, Julia thought, charmed, as she smiled back. Yet somehow, unbidden, the name Tony Soprano popped into her head. She tried to get rid of it. After all, it wasn’t right to make up her mind yet. She still didn’t know anything about these people, except that they lived well, had uneven taste, and a good sense of hospitality. Well, and the fact that they had some connection to armed men and the kidnapping (or worse) of doctors and their small daughters. And one could probably take a wild guess that they didn’t feel much affection for the Chosen People.
She hadn’t changed her name. She wasn’t ashamed of who she was. But she also didn’t feel like she had to take responsibility for the actions and thoughts of every other Goldberg, Greenberg, Levy and Cohen in the world either. I am who I am, and they are who they are. As for being a “people,” part of a clan… it meant nothing to her. She was born in Britain; that was her people, her clan. That her grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe was neither here nor there. Theirs was an accident of birth, as was hers. She rejected its claim on her, refusing to kow-tow to the middle-class idea that one’s distant ancestry deserved any special loyalty.
She was a human being, part of mankind. That connection had her loyalty, her fealty. Her country of birth and education too deserved some sentimental connection that she fostered without too much difficulty. She was proud of being British; the achievement of that fair, small, green isle in culture and history and literature was worth being proud of, feeling connectedness to.
But anything in the mystical reaches of some quasicultural/religious backwater ruled by paternalistic old farts who oppressed women and interpreted musty old texts to make life easier—and more profitable—for themselves was quite outside her line of vision. The whole “Israel” thing just didn’t interest her.
Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. She shrugged, feeling her excitement mount. As her parents had always warned her, this was not a job for a nice Jewish girl. Which is why she loved it so much.
The cars stopped, and the men jumped out, screaming. Someone pulled at her sleeve, but Ismael slapped away his hand and shouted at him. After that, she was allowed to make her own way out of the car. She had no clue in the world where she was. Amman or Damascus or a suburb of Jerusalem, all were equally plausible. The house in front of her was a mansion built in the Arab style with glowing pink stone and multicolored marble floor tiles surrounded by an intricate pattern of hand-painted tiles. Formal gardens with charming fountains sprayed cooling water into the air, and the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle mingled in the vine-covered portico leading to the front doors.
Terrorism was obviously quite an upscale career choice in this part of the world, she thought, looking around with a mixture of grudging respect and utter contempt. She was led inside and asked to wait. The living room was tiled with black, white-veined marble; low, built-in couches covered with red Persian carpeting and large, hand-embroidered pillows lined the walls. Enormous bronze trays held pistachio nuts, dates, figs and almonds. A woman covered from neck to ankle in the traditional dark outer coat, her hair completely swallowed by a tightly wound head scarf, brought out a tray with a bronze tea kettle, porcelain cups and gluey semolina flour cakes, thick with honey. The woman poured with silent graciousness, indicating achair and table. Julia nodded her thanks, sitting down and taking a polite bite and sip. Her role completed, the woman withdrew as silently as she had appeared, but not before favoring Julia with a lovely smile.
Charming, Julia thought, charmed, as she smiled back. Yet somehow, unbidden, the name Tony Soprano popped into her head. She tried to get rid of it. After all, it wasn’t right to make up her mind yet. She still didn’t know anything about these people, except that they lived well, had uneven taste, and a good sense of hospitality. Well, and the fact that they had some connection to armed men and the kidnapping (or worse) of doctors and their small daughters. And one could probably take a wild guess that they didn’t feel much affection for the Chosen People.
She hadn’t changed her name. She wasn’t ashamed of who she was. But she also didn’t feel like she had to take responsibility for the actions and thoughts of every other Goldberg, Greenberg, Levy and Cohen in the world either. I am who I am, and they are who they are. As for being a “people,” part of a clan… it meant nothing to her. She was born in Britain; that was her people, her clan. That her grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe was neither here nor there. Theirs was an accident of birth, as was hers. She rejected its claim on her, refusing to kow-tow to the middle-class idea that one’s distant ancestry deserved any special loyalty.
She was a human being, part of mankind. That connection had her loyalty, her fealty. Her country of birth and education too deserved some sentimental connection that she fostered without too much difficulty. She was proud of being British; the achievement of that fair, small, green isle in culture and history and literature was worth being proud of, feeling connectedness to.
But anything in the mystical reaches of some quasicultural/religious backwater ruled by paternalistic old farts who oppressed women and interpreted musty old texts to make life easier—and more profitable—for themselves was quite outside her line of vision. The whole “Israel” thing just didn’t interest her.
Similar Books
