Vicious Circle by Robert Littell Page B

Hebrew. I propose,
ya’ani
, that we meet on the no-man’s land of English.”
    Apfulbaum’s tongue flicked nervously over his parched lips. He sensed he had won the first skirmish. “We will talk in English
     if it suits you. But let’s not delude ourselves—between us there can be no such thing as a no-man’s land. We both want the
     same splinter of Holy Land, and I mean to have it.”
    The doctor smiled coldly. “You are what the Isra’ili newspapers call a maximalist,
ya’ani
. For you, there is no question of compromise. All or nothing is your creed. I myself am ready to negotiate an equitable settlement.
     I am ready to permit the Jews born in Palestinebefore 1948 to remain in the Islamic state I mean to create on the condition they convert to Islam.”
    “And the others?”
    “They can go to hell,
ya’ani
.”
    The Rabbi’s riotous brows danced above his bulging eyes. “Here, at last, is a charter member of the Amalek Liberation Organization,”
     he cried excitedly to his secretary. He spun back to his interrogator. “Okay, okay, cards on the table. God promised Abraham
     and his descendants, me among them, all the land from the brook of Egypt, which we call the Nile, to the great river Euphrates.
     Contrary to published reports I consider myself a minimalist, inasmuch as I am prepared to settle for less than God offered
     Abraham; I, too, am willing to negotiate an equitable settlement, one giving the Jews everything between the Mediterranean
     and the River Jordan. When we’ve digested that, say in thirty or fifty years, we’ll phone you up and make an appointment and
     raise the subject of the Euphrates.”
    The Doctor played the game. “What do you propose to do with the Palestinians who already live between the Mediterranean and
     the Jordan?”
    Apfulbaum snorted contemptuously. “They can emigrate to Syria, which is worse than hell,
ya’ani
. The Jewish people occupy one sixth of one per cent of all Arab land, what Lord Balfour called ‘a small notch’ when he set
     it aside in 1917 for a Jewish state. I tell you frankly, the angels will abandon heaven to sell used Egyptian cars in Tel
     Aviv; God—blessed be His name—will turn up as a television anchor man before anyone takes a thimbleful of this sacred soil
     away from us.”
    Leaning against a wall, Azziz watched the two nearly blind men eyeing each other with a wordless fury. He wondered how long
     the prisoners would remain alive; he wondered how long he and his brother would remain alive. He had once confided to his
     brother that he could feel the temperature of the air rise the instant the Doctor entered a room; his almost sightless eyes
     seemed to burn with a fierce anger, which he kept bottled up inside him. He rarely lost his temper, though it would have been
     better if he let some of the anger seep out from time to time. Even those, like Azziz, who considered themselvesdisciples of the Doctor and suspected he was the long-awaited Renewer were secretly terrified of his anger. They knew from
     experience that it could erupt into savage violence at any moment; they knew they as well as the Jews could become its victims
     if the Doctor decided their deaths would serve his cause.
    In the strained silence, the soft voice of Yussuf reading from the Qur’an could be heard.
Whosoever obeys God, and the Messenger—they are with those whom God has blessed, Prophets, just men, martyrs, the righteous
.
    Petra slipped into the room with a cup of green tea and offered it to the Rabbi. Wrapping both hands around the cup, Apfulbaum
     brought the tea to his lips, all the while squinting over it at his interrogator. “I seem to have misplaced my eyeglasses.
     It probably happened in the excitement of the attack on my car.”
    “When I was a student at the American University of Beirut a lifetime ago,” the Doctor said, “I picked up some colloquial
     Arabic. When a Lebanese Arab conquers an enemy he says, ‘I broke his eye.’” The