The Pure

bomb a fictional target in Iran, just to inject some patriotic vigour into the country before the election. Killed by Operation Cinnamon, killed – among others – by Uzi. Killed by his own countrymen; killed by the very people who were supposed to protect him.
    At three thirty exactly, Gal knocked on the door of the shed. The felt-tip heart had been washed off; when Uzi asked her about it she pretended not to have heard him. She drove a purple Volkswagen Beetle. Her parents, she said, had bought it for her when she turned seventeen. They drove away, ignoring the stares of the crowd of girls clustered around the bus stop.
    ‘So what are you doing in England?’ she asked him, eyes on the road. Her hand was resting on the gear stick and he fought the urge to cup it with his own. He looked out of the window at the grey autumn sky, which stretched dismally above them.
    ‘You know,’ he said at length. ‘I just needed to get out of Israel.’
    ‘I never want to leave when I’m there,’ she replied, ‘I love it.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It’s our land.’ There was no irony in her voice. He looked at her; there was no irony in her expression either.
    ‘What about England?’ he said.
    ‘England’s my country, not my land.’
    ‘What’s the difference?’
    ‘I don’t need to tell you that. You were in the army, right?’
    ‘I was.’
    ‘So.’ She stopped talking to concentrate on negotiating a roundabout. They were silent for a while. He wondered what she would say if she knew that the people who govern her land were going to attack Iran on false pretences, and would kill anyone who stood in their way, even fellow Israelis. That he was planning to stop them.
    She turned on the radio. ‘I’m joining the IDF once I finish school,’ she said over the music.
    ‘The army?’
    ‘Like I said, it’s our land,’ she said. ‘The only democracy in the Middle East. Our home. Our people.’
    ‘Good for you,’ he said darkly.
    ‘Come on,’ she said, giving him a brief, disgusted look. ‘What were you fighting for?’
    Uzi had no idea how to answer that question. He continued to look out of the window. She was from a different world, this girl, a different time. She reminded him, somehow, of the sea; of his parents, his sun-drenched childhood, the beach. With this girl he could have stayed up all night playing guitar, discussing which army unit they wanted to join. They could have drunk beer and gone to parties, swum naked in the ocean. She could have watched him fooling around with his friends in the Negev desert, doing stunts and jumps on dirt bikes. They could have hiked in the mountains, explored the ancient, biblical ravines, lain on their stomachs on the earth and fired M16s on target ranges. He looked at her again, silhouetted against the greyness of London, and was torn between an impulse to make love to her and extinguish her life with his hands.
    ‘Can you imagine what it’s like to kill?’ he said.
    She didn’t take her eyes off the road. ‘That would depend who you were killing and why.’
    ‘There’s only ever one victim, and only ever one motive.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Think about it.’
    She gave him a sidelong look. ‘This is getting heavy,’ she said suddenly.
    ‘It was you who made it heavy.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘Have you heard of Esther Cailingold?’ said Gal suddenly.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Esther Cailingold. A British schoolteacher. She fought in the War of Independence in 1948. At the age of twenty-three she was killed in the defence of Jerusalem.’
    ‘Your point is?’
    ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m doing a project on her at school.’
    ‘OK, OK. Turn right here. I live there on the corner.’
    ‘Nice neighbourhood.’
    ‘I’ve seen worse.’
    Uzi instructed Gal to stop the car a block away from his flat, where a gang of hooded teenagers were eating out of cardboard boxes. A swirl of grimy leaves fluttered across the bonnet. ‘I’m not getting out,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait for you here. With the windows closed.’
    ‘Have you heard of Arik?’ said Uzi, opening the door.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Ariel Sharon.’
    ‘Of course I have. Think I’m stupid?’
    ‘In 1982 he was found guilty of allowing thousands of Palestinian civilians to be massacred. A government report called for him to be dismissed from his post, that he should never hold public office again.’
    ‘You mean Ariel Sharon who later became prime minister?’
    ‘No, Ariel Sharon the peace activist,’