Selected Detective
THE AMERICAN COLONY CLUB

Layla can't remember the first time she was a member of the American Colony Morning Breakfast club, but this Friday morning meeting program for several years has become her weekly event routine. It is not a reasonably adequate club, but rather an informal get-together held at the American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem, where, in addition to coffee and croissants, the club is located, a group of working journalists who helped and diplomats who were there at the time would discuss the big issues that were going on at the time. Breakfast will generally continue to lunch, lunch to afternoon tea, and a few times a year, afternoon tea drinking it continues to dinner with alcoholic beverages, with a great debate. On one of the most memorable occasions, a Washington Post bureau chief has broken a wine bottle on the head of a Danish culture attache.

Layla arrived shortly after ten o'clock. After slowing down a bit to get the mail into the hotel's post box, he continued walking past the cool stone-floored foyer and out into the sun-filled main courtyard with his fountain, flowering plant pots and metal tables under cream-colored parasols. A number of loyal visitors to the club have been present there his friend Nuha, Onz Schenker of the Jerusalem Post, Sam Rogerson of Reuters, Tom Roberts, the man from the British Consulate who was forever trying to be able to chat with him was also a new pair of faces that he did not know, all sitting under an orange tree.

They were discussing warmly.

While pulling out a chair, Layla poured herself a cup of black coffee from a teapot on the table beside them. Robert threw a glance at her, smiled nervously, then glared again.

“All just a joke,” Rogers said, as he rubbed his bald head.

“This is a road map that goes nowhere. Until Israel can accept the central issue, which is that it has dumped feces on Palestinians and must make significant concessions to make up for it, blood will still continue to flow

“I'll tell you what the fuckin' central issue really is,” Schenker murmured, while exhaling Noblesse and frowning.

“That in the final analysis, the Arabs had no interest in talking about peace. Free course offers leeway if all they really want to do is remove Israel from the map.”

“bullshit,” says Nuha.

“Really? you mean Al-Mulatham suddenly wants to negotiate? Or, hamas just about to recognize Israel's right to exist?”

“hei, onz, they are not representatives of the Palestinian people,” said the petite woman with the full makeup, Deborah zelon from the Associated Press.

“So, who is representative? Abbas's? the qurei? people who are not trusted by almost the entire population? Arafat, the man who tortured his own people, embezzled aid money, was offered peace on a plate at Camp David.”.

“Not that too!” shout Noah.

“Barak offers him ninety-seven percent from the West Side!” Shouted Schenker, pointing his cigarette at the woman.

“Herself country. And he slapped it.”

“What is offered to him, as you know well,” Nuhah said as she sparkled, “A are a number of areas surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements and without international borders. That's it, and that's a little bit of desert that you've been using as a poison dumping ground for the last twenty years. Of course he couldn't have accepted that. He will definitely be put to death without examination.” Schenker snorted, turning his cigarette into an ashtray.

A waiter came in with even more coffee and a large plate of croissants, followed a moment later by a rather old man wearing a wool jacket and semi-circular glasses, who then pulled up the chair and joined in. Nuha introduced him as Professor Faisal Bekal of al-quds University. He raised his arthritic hand to greet her.

“I hate to say it,”

Rogerson said, continuing the delayed conversation, “but I agree with Schenker on the last point. Arafat screwed things up. Abbas and qurei mean well, but they don't give enough respect to make a realistic deal and bring all of his people. Palestine needs a new figure.”

“What is Israel not?” ask Noah.

“Of course yes,” said Rogers, taking an apple from a bowl in the middle of the table and starting to peel it with a knife.

“Sharon is a rust destroyer. But that does not change the fact that the people you all know today will not solve this problem. Not permanently.”

“So, who?” deborah zelon. “Dahlan and Rajub do not yet have the basis of strength.erekat is not the pioneer. Barghouti is in custody. No more.”

Professor Bekal slowly grabbed a croissant, split it in half and placed half at the end of the table while biting the other.

“There Sa’ib marsudi,” he said calmly, while removing the crumbs from the corners of his lips, his voice thin and slightly vibrating.

“you think so?” ask Rogerson.

The old man moved his head to one side.

“why not? He's young, smart, and people love him. He has a mandate anyway. Son of an activist, grandson of an activist, leader of the First Intifada, but enough for pragmatists to know that there will be no independent Palestine without negotiations and compromises.”

“And there was a Jewish bloodstain on his hand,” between Schenker.

“In this part of the world, everyone has hands stained by the blood of others, Mr. Schenker,” sigh.

“What matters is what they do now, not what they have done in the past. Yes, marsudi did smuggle weapons into Gaza. And yes, that same weapon was undoubtedly used to kill the Israelites. Perhaps the same Israelite who drove his family out of his homeland, imprisoned his father, shot his brother. He has done his devotion. He is now one of a handful of Palestinians with the courage to openly reject violent resistance. I think he can do a lot of good things.”

“If she is long enough to live,” says Nuha. “hamas wants to slit her throat.”

“Well, onz,” said Rogers, who is now trying to peel apples in a single, intact spiral. “With that base he should be your best friend.”

Schenker took a sip of his coffee and turned on another bar of Noblesse.

“They're all just as bad,” he grumbled. “You can't trust a single one of those kparats.”

“Hear the voice of ideals and hope!” deborah Zelon said with a laugh. The discussion turned to other topics, opinions popping up like ping pong balls, the tones of speech rose and dimmed, the rhythm halted here and there by a sudden burst of laughter or shouting, he said, the latter is usually from Onz Schenker, whose spectrum of conversation is always in two types of angry and very angry responses.Other people get into that area and join the group, the numbers swelled further until more than twenty people, and what was usually a single debate turned into a series of branch discussions between smaller groups.

Tom Robert approached and sat down next to Layla.

“Halo, Layla,” said, his tongue slightly swerving at the first L pronunciation of his name innate from his childhood, he once explained, when he had a tremendous stuttering.

“How are you?”

“Good,” Reply Layla.

“You are very quiet today,” he continued, his mouth back a bit of trouble, this time on “s” from the word ’very’. “Usually you open the opportunity for Schenker to exert all abilities to defeat you.”

He smiles. “This time off.”

“Mediculous thoughts?”

“Ah, you could have.”

It was a busy week for him. The day after eating with Nuha, he wrote two and a half articles, good articles even by his standards, it includes a two thousand word profile of Baruch har-zion for the New York Review (already out that day).

After that he went to Gaza to find news of the growing domestic violence and rarely recognized problems in Palestinian society, almost no time to write it before the Guardian sent him to Limassol in order to cover the conference on the aid program for Palestine. He returned a little late the night before and had spent half the night transcribing the tape, and had only fallen asleep at four in the morning for a few hours of restless sleep.

It wasn't exhaustion that plagued his mind right now, but rather the damn letter. He couldn't seem to get that out of his mind. All week it was in his mind, lurking in the back of his mind, making him curious, encouraging him. I have very invaluable information for this man in his fight against the oppressive Zionists....

In return, I can offer you the thing that, I'm sure, will be the biggest exclusive report of your already brilliant career.... The information I presented earlier was closely related to the attached document.

The more he thought about it the more he was convinced that his initial judgment was wrong; that the letter was neither a mockery, nor an attempt to frame him, but rather a genuine article. He does not have concrete evidence about this, just the feelings, instincts, the same instincts that tell him about the clues of the story that are worth following, the beliefs of the interviewee.

In between the time available between writing articles and traveling, Layla has been conducting a temporary investigation into the identity of the boy who delivered the letter. The use of the words “will propose a proposal to Anda” at the beginning of the letter made him think that the author is not a native English speaker. But beyond that there is no other clue as to his identity (sometimes Layla is so sure that he must be a man). Whoever it is, he said he would contact her again in the near future. But so far he has not heard anything.

There are only strange copies of the documents. Layla had already sent it to an acquaintance at Hebrew University, who said that it might be some kind of code, though he himself did not understand the slightest bit how to decipher and decipher the code. GR's search over the internet, as he suspected, featured a long line of similar names over a million, for God's sake. After opening the first thirty sites, he gave up because it was really time consuming. The search led him to a dead end.

“There can I help you with?” Tom Roberts looked at him expectantly.

“You said you were thinking about something,” he added while noticing the confused look on the woman's face.

“I just think who knows I can help.”

“I doubt it,” said Layla, sipping her coffee. “Unless you are a great code reader.”

“Actually I'm not too bad. Well, kind of an amateur hobby. What context?” Layla raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Is a letter, official document?”

“Letter, I guess,” replied Layla.

“Cuno. It could be medieval. Or ancient, even. I couldn't have guessed the end of the letter.it was just a long series of letters with signatures underneath. GR.” Tom closed his lips in thought, then shook his head to signal that the initials meant nothing to him.

“It's my day off,” he said after being silent for a while.

“I can learn it if you want.” Layla is a little hesitant because she knows Tom is interested in her and she doesn't want to complicate things.

Before Layla rejected his offer, Tom added, “Nothing meant. I-i promise. I thought, after six months I just received that message.” Layla looked at him for a while, then smiled and touched his hand on the man's hand.

“forgive me, Tom. You must think I'm a real jerk.”

“Part of attraction, to be honest,” said.

Layla rubbed her hands.

“It's great if you want to research it. Origin on one condition. I'll buy you lunch.”

“If only every day there was a code to be solved,” He said, smiling. “When is the right time you think?”

“Nothing is as good as it is now,” Layla replied, pushing her chair back and standing straight.

“I guess I've kept my Schenker quiet for a week.” Roberts grabbed his jacket and the two said goodbye.

Nuha threw a question mark-filled glance at Layla, whom she responded with a headband, as if to say, “This is not what you think” is. As soon as they crossed the courtyard entering the hotel's foyer, the sound of Onz Schenker exploded behind them.

“Yehuda milan is the last person who can save this country! War hero or not a war hero, that man is just a disease.”

“WHY SO, ONZ?” yell Sam Rogers.

“Because he is very likely to cut a realistic deal with the Palestinians? people like you are the ones who are actually sick!”

“You're antisemitic, Rogers!”

“My wife is Jewish, damn it! where could I possibly be an antisemite?”

“Fuck you, Rogers!”

“You're the jerk, Schenker!”

There was a creaking chair, the sound of plates touching, and a frenzied sound of exclamations shouting for the two men to sit down and stop acting silly. By the time Layla and Tom Roberts had already passed the hotel foyer and exited under a curved front gate filled with bougainvillea flowers, the sound of his colleagues at his Breakfast Club grew more and more faint then disappeared from hearing.