Prince of Fire

the Hebrew name Sarid, which means remnant. He married my mother, and together they had six children, one child for every million killed in the Shoah. I was the last. They named me Dina: avenged. ”
    The volume of the music rose suddenly, then died away. When it was gone, all that remained was the lapping of a wake against the hull of the yacht. Dina’s eyes narrowed suddenly, as if remembering physical pain. Her gaze remained on the image of the boulevard St-Rémy, but Gabriel could see that it was Dizengoff Street that occupied her thoughts.
    “On the morning of October 19, 1994, I was standing at the corner of Dizengoff and Queen Esther streets with my mother and two of my sisters. When the Number Five bus came, I kissed my mother and sisters and watched them climb on board. While the doors were open, I saw him.” She paused and turned her head to look at Gabriel. “He was sitting just behind the driver, with a bag at his feet. He actually looked at me. He had the sweetest face. No, I thought, it couldn’t be possible. Not the Number Five bus on Dizengoff Street. So I said nothing. The doors closed, and the bus started to drive away.”
    Her eyes clouded with tears. She folded her hands and laid them over the scar on her leg.
    “So what did this boy have in his bag, this boy who I saw but said nothing about? He had the shell of an Egyptian land mine, that’s what he had in the bag. He had twenty kilograms of military-grade TNT and bolts soaked with rat poison. The flash came first, then the sound of the explosion. The bus rose several feet into the air and crashed to the street again. I was knocked to the ground. I could see people screaming all round me, but I couldn’t hear anything—the blast wave had damaged my eardrums. I noticed a human leg lying in the street next to me. I assumed it was mine, but then I saw that both my legs were still attached. The leg had come from someone in the bus.”
    Gabriel, listening to her, thought suddenly of Rome; of standing next to Shimon Pazner and gazing at the wreckage of the embassy. Was Dina’s presence aboard Fidelity serendipitous, he wondered, or had she been placed here intentionally by Shamron as a living reminder about the importance of doing his duty?
    “The first policemen who came to the scene were sickened by the blood and the stench of burning flesh. They fell to their knees in the street and vomited. As I lay there, waiting for someone to help me, blood began to drip on me. I looked up and saw blood and scraps of flesh hanging on the leaves of the chinaberry trees. It rained blood that morning on Dizengoff Street. Then the rabbis from Hevra Kadisha arrived. They collected the largest body parts by hand, including those scraps of flesh in the trees. Then they used tweezers to pick up the smallest pieces. I watched rabbis pick up the remains of my mother and two sisters with tweezers and place them in a plastic bag. That’s what we buried. Scraps. Remnants. ”
    She wrapped her arms around her legs and drew her knees beneath her chin. Gabriel sat on the couch next to her and settled his gaze on the screen to make certain they missed nothing. His hand reached out for hers. She took it as a tear spilled down her cheek.
    “I blamed myself. If I’d known that the sweet-looking boy was really Abdel Rahim al-Souwi, member of Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, I would have been able to warn them. If I’d known that Abdel’s brother had been killed in a shoot-out with the IDF in 1989, I would have understood why he was riding the Number Five bus in North Tel Aviv with a bag at his feet. I decided I would fight back, not with a gun, but with my brain. I vowed that next time I saw one of them, I would know, and I’d be able to warn the people before it was too late. That’s why I volunteered for the Office. That’s why I was able to make the connection between Rome and Beit Sayeed. I know them better than they know themselves.”
    Another tear. This time Gabriel wiped it away.
    “Why did he kill my mother and sisters, Gabriel? Was it because we stole his land? Was it because we were occupiers? No, it was because we wanted to make peace. If I hate them, you’ll forgive me. If I beg you to show Khaled no mercy, you’ll grant me leniency for my crimes. I’m Dina Sarid, the avenged remnant. I’m the sixth million. And if Khaled comes here tonight, don’t you dare let him get on that bus.”
    L EV HAD OFFERED HIM use of a Jerusalem safe flat.