The Pure

it was making him feel sick. For years he had been steeped in darkness, in a world of shadows where anything was allowed, where the only morality to be answered to was the security of Israel, and the humiliation of her foes. Where the only thing that mattered was that there was always a battle to be fought. He had given the Office everything – his body, his mind, his friends, his marriage even – only to find out that what they wanted from him, what they really wanted from him, was his soul. And now that he had fled, he was left wondering if they hadn’t already taken that too.
    When he arrived in Camden he was sweating horribly and needed a drink. By this time his anger was waning, leaving him feeling resigned, drained, soiled. He bought a few cans of lager and found a quiet spot by the canal, amongst the bushes, where he smoked a spliff and watched the water move lazily by.
    Gradually, the world seemed a better place to be. Then he lay on his back in the sun-bleached grass and looked up into the greyish, boiling atmosphere. For the first time in months, he found himself thinking about Noam. How old must he be now? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t even remember, how about that. Still, it was understandable. The boy was his in name alone; they had no connection really, no relationship to speak of. He wondered if his hair was still blond, or if it had grown darker over time. He wondered if he was still at school. For a while he tried to recall at what age children leave school. Sixteen? Eighteen? Something like that. He wondered if the boy had a new father. He had been away a long time.
    He sucked deeply on the spliff and allowed the fragrant smoke to filter into the very bottom of his lungs. Then he held his breath, feeling his head grow dizzy and his legs become lighter than air. He was alone, profoundly so, and he felt it. Parents? Dead. Wife? Estranged. Siblings? Roi didn’t count. He had double crossed his own brother on his father’s will. The bastard. Uzi knew his life was bleak, he was utterly alone in the world. If he weren’t stoned, he’d probably be crying. On the other hand, if he weren’t stoned, he’d never be thinking this way. Who gives a fuck, he thought to himself. Who gives a fucking fuck. And he smiled.
    It hadn’t always been like this. Uzi’s dope habit was unremarkable at first, when he was in the regular army. Most people did it. Even when he was selected for the Navy commandos, the occasional dalliance was not out of the question, after a difficult operation or a long tour of duty. But to the Office, dope was unacceptable. He wasn’t a heavy user at that time, was surprised that they were so concerned about it. But it could be used against him, they said; lawbreaking compromises operatives. In the end, he had to admit it made sense. The organisation could ill afford any embarrassments, especially since the year before, when a pair of rookies had been spotted by a member of the public planting a dummy bomb under a car in a Tel Aviv suburb; the alarm was raised, and the Office’s training methods ended up all over the press. Not, he had to admit, good for the image of the organisation. So he agreed, and for the first six months he kept his word. Not, of course, that it matters any more.
    Uzi was halfway through his spliff when he heard someone approaching along the towpath. He sat up sharply and his head swam. Before he could get to his feet, a figure emerged into view, dark against the sun. A woman, good-looking in an old-fashioned way, like an actress from an old film, dressed in tight-fitting chinos and an open-necked black shirt. She saw the spliff in his fingers and slowed down. His feet blocked the path.
    ‘Walking by yourself?’ said Uzi.
    ‘I have friends,’ replied the woman guardedly. ‘Can I get by?’
    A sassy voice, low and unhurried, with an accent that Uzi instantly placed as East Coast American. There was something in the way she phrased the question that made him think he could make her stay. He lay back in the desiccated grass and nodded to the space beside him.
    ‘Join me for a few drags. I could use the company, and I’m too stoned to try anything on.’
    ‘But I don’t know you.’ She didn’t move to walk on as she said this, and Uzi knew then that she was his.
    ‘I don’t know you either,’ he said. ‘Who cares?’
    ‘You going to charge me for this?’
    ‘You should be charging me.’
    ‘You are stoned, aren’t you?’ said the woman,