other-side-of-deception-victor-ostrovsky

THt OTHER SIDE OF DtCEPTlOS / 177almost feel the heartbeat of the passengers. We were approaching aplace that somehow seemed dark, frightening. Up to this moment,entering Israel had always been something that I associated with securityand strength, never with fear. Yet now I was surrounded by thatexact feeling. You could see it in every pair of staring eyes. I'd alwaysthought that the stare was hate, because I never thought that there wasa reason to fear me. When I was a soldier, I didn't want to harm anyone;all I wanted was to do my job. Only if someone had ill intentionsdid he have reason to fear me.A Jordanian policeman boarded the bus and made a short inspection.Then he directed the bus to the narrow forty-meter-long bridge.We made our way slowly, under the watchful eye of the Israeli militarypoliceman on the other side. I could hear the orders shouted out inHebrew. "Meshulam, you check the bus. We strip this one."What I heard was not good news for me. The bus stopped, and allwere ordered off. The military policeman was a reserve soldier, thereto do his thirty or sixty days. He wasn't looking to earn any medals.He just wanted to get the day over with so that he would be one daycloser to going home. I knew the feeling: I'd been there too. He waspolite and courteous to me and to the other passengers. A young regularsoldier was teasing him. "Why don't you carry their suitcases whileyou're at it?""Why don't you shut up," the older soldier answered. "There isno reason to treat people like your mother treats you.""Don't talk like that about my mother, you son of a whore."A sergeant walked over and shouted at them. "Shut up, you two,and get to work. The day has just started, and already you two areat it."When I showed my passport, the sergeant pointed to a small shackat the end of the long canopy that provided shade for the customstables. "Over there, please."I knew he was sending me to the foreign tourists' shack. As Istarted to walk, he called me. "You Englishman?""What is it?" I turned to him, smiling at the term he used."You no have luggage?""No, I'm only going to Jericho for a few hours.""What if bridge close before you come back?""Then I will have a problem, won't I. Why? Is the bridge going toclose today?""You never know."I turned and walked over to the hut. Fadllal was being bodysearched, as I could see when I entered the small building. The youngsoldier inside asked me a few questions, for which I was well prepared.I was grateful that he kept using my name all the time; it helpedme remember it. I asked him not to stamp the Israeli seal on my passport,so he put the seal on a separate piece of paper that he thenslipped into the passport. It was a given that people coming across thebridges who wanted to go back the same way wouldn't want theIsraeli seal on their passport. That could be a problem later. Had I notasked for that, it would have seemed very strange. "Have a nice visitto Israel," the soldier said."I didn't know the West Bank was considered Israel," I heardmyself say."I'm an Israeli soldier; you're crossing the border I protect. Wherethe hell do you think you are?" He laughed scornfully."When we were here this wasn't regarded as England.""You see?" He smiled at me with what looked like pity. "If it wasregarded that way, you might still be here, right?"I walked out the other side and to the waiting taxis. The taxi filledup, and then we were on our way to Jericho. Fadllal was the last passengerto enter. From the time we'd boarded the bus, almost threehours earlier, we'd not exchanged a word. It was about nine-thirtynow, and we were at the entrance to Jericho. The cab was hot, and thetraffic was slow. We were driving behind a long military convoy ladenwith tanks and half-trucks on trailer trucks. They were covered, but itwas hard to mistake a Merkava tank for anything else. They wereprobably returning from an exercise up north.Fadllal started a casual conversation with me. One thing led toanother; we arranged to have lunch in a restaurant he recommended.Then he said he'd take me to the store I wanted. The conversation wasto benefit anyone in the cab who might be an informant or just a curiousperson with some connection to the authorities, who-I found ithard to comprehend-were hostile to me. I had a constant pain in mystomach; I knew it was fear. Fadllal led me to a restaurant filled withIsraeli soldiers. The convoy had stopped for a break, and most of thesoldiers were seated around the large open marble balcony, shadedonly by a vine weaving its way through a wire pergola."What will you have?" Fadllal asked as the waiter approached us."Whatever you have, I will try." Fadllal didn't argue and orderedin Arabic."So what now, my friend?" I asked, feeling it was time to runsome sweat down his forehead. There was no way that this man was aMossad agent or he would have handed me over already. He was ascalm as if he were still in downtown Amman and not in the Occupied