Selected Detective
SECRET MEETING I

Khalifa blinked her eyes. He was standing in a simple space low in stone walls, an empty concrete floor, a corrugated zinc roof with a collapsible camp table, and on a table, a pair of oil lamps, he said, the latter illuminates the space with a heavy, thick and brightly lit orange glow. In front of him were three men sitting on bad armchairs. The fourth person was standing in a far corner of the room, leaning against the wall, his face covered in shadows. The air is so humid with the smell of kerosene torches and cigarette smoke.

Relieved it was his spontaneous reaction. The tempestuous joy that whatever purpose he was brought here, was clearly not to be killed. Almost instantly he was also surprised, because the person who had called him, one of the men sitting on the armchair, was unmistakably with his thick square glasses and silver gray hair, he said, none other than Ahmad Gulami, his country's foreign minister. Khalifa opened her mouth to say something, asked about what was going on, but was so shocked, and fascinated, that no word came out, and after a moment she closed it again. The silence between them grew longer. The four men looked at him. The only sound was the soft hiss from the lights and, outside, the ringing sound of iron shutters. Then Gulami moved her hand towards the flask located on a nearby table.

“Let's go ahead, inspector, enjoy the tea,” he repeats. “I suspect you must need it after this long trip. And if you can close that door ... it's a cold night.” In a daze, Khalifa pushed open the door and walked up to the table and filled the Styrofoam cup with water from the flask. As soon as he finished, Gulami gestured for him to sit on a low canvas chair by his side. The men standing remained in place; the other two shifted their seats so that they faced Khalifa head-on.

The youngest among them is a handsome male in his late thirties, with black hair and a crimson-white Keffiyeh crossed over his shoulder has been known to the Detective: Sa’eb Marsudi, who has been, the Palestinian activist who later became a politician, a hero who was not for his people but, after his leadership of the First Intifada back in the late 1980s, was a hero, for much of the Arab world as well (Khalifa still remembers the iconic television image of a Marsudi, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, kneeling and praying in front of a row of Israeli advanced tanks). The other, an older man of medium height, tall thin, with a white headgear, a cigarette sandwiched between his teeth, and, on his right cheek a crescent-shaped codet curved from his eyes to the chin of this man Khalifa had also seen, although at first he did not remember where exactly. Only after a few seconds did he remember that he saw his face on Piet Jansen Villa, the first night he visited the house, in the picture on the front cover of Time magazine. Masan, Maban? That kind of thing. A politician.

Or is it a soldier? israelites, of course. The fourth figure, who was standing, he was unable to recognize her, although there was something about her a bear-like and slow-moving body line, a face with protruding bones, and a, the way he sipped a drink from the silver bottle he was holding that Khalifa did not like. Cruel, that was the initial impression. And drunk anyway, from the looks of it disgusting. He looked at her for a moment, then turned his gaze and sipped his tea.

“So,” said Gulami, while pulling the yellowish-colored Tasbih from his jacket pocket and starting to say to them....

“Now we are all here. let's start.” He looked at Khalifa.

“First, inspector, I must emphasize the absolute secrecy of what you will hear tonight. Absolute confidentiality. Suppose you were never brought to this place. You don't see these people. This meeting never happened. Is it clear enough?” The chief detective is full of questions to ask, and some comments about how he was treated. But he did not want to complain about them in front of someone so powerful as his country's foreign minister, and just muttered simply “Ya, Pak”. Gulami looked at him sharply, the prayer beads moved by his fingers gave off a soft clicking sound, then, with a nod, he leaned back and crossed his legs.

“Sa’ib Marsudi, I'm sure, no need to introduce again.” He pointed at the man with Keffiyeh crossed over his shoulder, who then nodded his head at Khalifa. His hand, Khalifa noticed, closed so tightly that his knuckles looked like they were about to break through his skin.

“Major General Yehuda Milan,” Gulami continued, nodding towards the smoker cigar, “This is one of the leading soldiers in his country, now one of the most respected politicians there. One of the smartest and also brave politicians.” Milan also gave a small nod to Khalifa, smoking his cigarette slowly.

“Detective-Inspector Arieh Ben-Roi” Gulami flicked his prayer beads towards the figure standing in the corner of the room “I'm sure you already know.” Somewhat impolite, Khalifa half raised her hand in greeting, contemptuous with herself for not guessing the identity of the man first. Ben-Roi did not react to Khalifa's movements, only looking at her from behind a shadow, his expression clearly hostile.

“Let me repeat it, inspector,” Gulami continued,

“What you heard tonight is not going to come out any further than these four walls and inside your head. There's more to it than you might realize, and I'm not going to put him in danger with free speech. Is this understandable?”

Khafila muttered “Ya, Pak” again, can't wait to know the core of all this. But he realized that this was not the time to ask, that whatever the reason for his presence here it would be revealed according to Gulami's will, not his will.

The foreign minister looked at him through black-framed and heavy glasses, then turned to Milan and Marsoudi, both of whom moved their heads up thinly as if to say, “Ok, just tell him.”

He's still always worried about being stolen. “For the past fourteen months the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt has provided this building to Sa’ Marsudi and Major General Milan as a safe and neutral environment, where they meet and talk, and, away from the media spotlight and the pressure of their domestic political situation. Both have spent their lives fighting for their respective nations, both have suffered personal loss in favor of for those men” Milan shifted its seat, throwing a gaze towards Ben-Roi” both have been, he said, independently, they reached the conclusion that those same people were experiencing catastrofa unless they could find a completely new way of interacting with each other, a different path to tread. Their purpose here is: to try to forge that different path; to develop a proposal to stay vibrant and, God willing, an eternal solution to the conflict that has ravaged their land for so long.” Whatever Khalifa had expected, that was definitely not this. He bit his lip, eyes moved from Gulami to Marsudi to Milan and back to Gulami, a faint sensation of fear felt behind his ribs, like a swimmer who has realized that he is too far away from the beach, begins to realize that he is even already at a depth far from what he imagined before.

They were silent, Gulami's words were floating in the air like echoes that continued to exist in a deep and very far cave, then the Foreign Minister opened his hands towards Marsudi, he said, inviting him to talk, the Palestinian shifted forward on his wooden chair.

“I don't want to waste your time by telling too much detail, inspector,” he said beginning, his brown eyes glittering in kerosene lamps. “What you need to know in this mission is, that in a number of meetings we have here over our last fourteen months, the, and it is not without bitter words that I make sure that he throws a glance at Milan producing a set of proposals aimed further for peace, prepared to accept the greater risk, he said, sacrifice more than any of our parties ever expected.” There was a cup of water on the floor next to him and, he lifted it up and took a short gulp.

“Understand, we are here only as individuals. We don't represent the government, we don't have official supporters for these talks, we don't have legislative authority to implement the proposals we've developed. What we really have is precisely because, as Mr. Gulami has explained, we have, we have spent such a long struggle for each of the reasons” again he flicked his eyes at the Israelite “is the faith and trust of the majority of our nation. I believe, enough faith and trust for them to obey and support the ideas of our compatriots that any of us would reject as hopeless idealism or treason.” Next to him, Milan smoked a cigar cigarette, the codet on his cheek looking increasingly sparkling in a thin crystal-like dimness.

“We have no illusions,” said the Isreal, continuing the discourse. His voice was deep, raucous and slow like a series of notes played on the lowest keys in an oboe.

“Proposal that we formulated is very controversial, will demand huge sacrifices from both parties. Its implementation will be fraught with suffering, conflict and suspicion. One, two, or perhaps three generations, is the length of time it takes to heal the wound. In addition, there will be many parties on both sides who refuse to join us.”

“Nevertheless,” Marsudi added, taking over the conversation, “We remain confident that, if we can persuade the majority of our society to accept it, then this proposal offers the best, he said, perhaps the only realistic and long-lasting solution in our land. And we also believe that when they see each of us standing side by side together, the arch-enemy who has for so long now united for peace, then the majority of our society will be persuaded. must be persuaded, rude. Because with what is now..” He shrugged his shoulders and was silent. Milan smokes his cigarette; Gulami moves his beads; in the corner, Ben-Roi is engrossed with his bottle, deep wrinkles adorn his forehead, either out of disapproval of what he had just heard or because of the other thoughts inside his big head, Khalifa did not know. He sipped his tea again, which began to cool down, picked up a cigarette and lit it. Fifteen seconds passed, twenty.

“I don't understand,” said. His voice sounded weak, afraid, like the voice of children in a room full of adults. “What's the deal with Al-Hakim?” For a moment Gulami seemed confused by this comment, then snorted, realizing what Khalifa had in mind.

“You think...” He shook his head. “Faruk Al-Hakim only useless dirt. Aib who humiliates his profession and country. You have helped us a lot by revealing what he has done. We didn't bring you here as punishment for revealing his dirty little secret.” Khalifa smoked again nervously, exhaling smoke almost before it could get into her lungs.

“So why? why did you tell me all this?” Gulami looked into his eyes for a moment, then turned to Milan. The Israelite sat in his chair, staring at Khalifa. There are endless pauses.

“What do you know about Menorah, Inspector?” he finally asked.

Again, this surprised the detective. He hesitated, confused, Milan's gaze seemed to burn him.

“I don't see what...” Gulami's hand touched the arm, soft but steady, his pressure indicating that he should answer the question. Khalifa shrugged helplessly.

“I don't know. It was ... in the Temple of Jerusalem; lost when the city fell into the hands of the Romans..”.