The Pure

asked him a question and was sitting there, a silly smile on his face, awaiting a response.
    ‘I said have you fucked her yet?’ said Avner.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Who do you think? Your boss.’
    ‘No, if you must know,’ said Uzi.
    Avner shook his head. ‘I could tell she was going to be trouble. I’ve never laid eyes on her but I always knew she was going to be trouble. And now you’ve fallen for her.’
    ‘Fuck you.’
    ‘Look, my brother. Let’s go and get some girl. How about it?’ He was speaking Hebrew now. Some girl, get some girl, get some girl. Uzi got to his feet and Avner grinned broadly. ‘I knew you couldn’t say no, my brother. It’s exactly what you need to unwind. To forget about things a little. That American woman is turning you into even more of a psycho than you were already.’
    The two men walked out into the cold night air, their ears ringing from the music.
    ‘Come on,’ said Avner, ‘we can take a taxi and pick up our cars later.’ He stepped into the street, waving at a black cab, pedestrians streaming around him. All at once, Uzi was overcome with a feeling of dread. Visiting brothels, paying hookers? Things like that made a man vulnerable. At a time like this, it was too risky.
    ‘I’m going,’ he said, and headed for his car. Avner called after him, but Uzi couldn’t hear what he was saying. He slipped behind the wheel and steered out into the traffic.

 
26
    As the Porsche cut through London, and the city swept past its windows like a pageant, Uzi settled in the womb-like seat and his mind reduced itself to a single Hebrew word, appearing in black spray paint: nekama . Revenge. For years this had been his personal barometer, the way he judged the political climate of his country. But nekama , that ugly word, was a failsafe indicator. Every so often, the Old City of Jerusalem would awake to find that during the night the word had been scrawled many times across the ancient cream-coloured stone, on doorways, on walls, even on the time-smoothed paving slabs. Nobody knew who was responsible for it. Uzi used to imagine it was a ghost informing the city of impending doom. Revenge. When he had first noticed the graffiti, almost two decades ago, it had never lasted long. The local people would clean it off within the hour. As the country lurched to the right, however, they lost their enthusiasm to erase it; these days, it was a permanent fixture.
    Uzi waited for the Kol to speak up, but it did not make an appearance. Suddenly he knew who he was going to call. His fingers hovered over the phone in its cradle on the dashboard – hovered but did not dial. They found their way back to the steering wheel, then to the butt of his R9, then to the packet of cigarettes in his inside pocket. He lit one, inhaled hungrily. Then he moved his fingers again, and this time they were successful.
    ‘Hello?’ came a voice – a girl’s voice.
    Uzi hesitated. ‘It’s Daniel.’
    ‘Daniel?’
    ‘Yes, you know. From – from school.’
    ‘The security guy?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    A pause, a hesitant intake of breath. ‘Where have you been?’
    ‘I . . . you know, I have a different job now. I moved to a different part of town.’
    ‘You’ve got a new number, too.’
    ‘Yeah, new number.’
    ‘You could have called, you know.’
    ‘I want to see you. Tonight.’
    ‘I’m studying. I have exams.’
    ‘I’m going to see you.’
    ‘You should have thought about me before. You should have called.’
    ‘Are you at home?’
    ‘I’ve told you. I’m studying.’
    ‘And I told you. Fuck studying.’
    Another pause, another breath. But she didn’t hang up. Uzi felt a rush of energy. ‘Tonight,’ he said.
    ‘If I fail, my parents will kill me.’
    ‘I’ll be with you in half an hour.’ He hung up, swung his car around and switched the sound system on loud. Hadag Nahash began to boom through the speakers: people, you don’t really have an excuse, you know the suits don’t give a damn, you lean on them like a broken wicker chair, they know this is the countdown to the explosion . . . He nodded to the beat, trying to lose himself in the music, that aggressive groove. The tune went round and round, churning up the conflict in his head. The dissonance was too much. He turned the music off and drove on in silence.
    Twenty minutes later he parked outside Gal’s house and killed the engine. It was a quiet night; the house looked comfortable and secure, a little nest of warmth in