The Black Widow

“Congratulations, Natalie. You just passed an important test. Never reveal anything about yourself to three intelligence officers unless one of them is holding a gun to your head.”

“Are you?”

“Heavens, no. Besides, we already know a great deal about you. We know, for example, that your family was from Algeria. They fled in 1962 after the war had ended. Not that they had a choice. The new regime declared that only Muslims could be citizens of Algeria.” He paused, then asked, “Can you imagine if we had done the same thing? What would they say about us then?”

Again, Natalie reserved judgment.

“More than a hundred thousand Jews were essentially driven into exile. Some came to Israel. The rest, like your family, chose France. They settled in Marseilles, where you were born in 1984. Your grandparents and parents all spoke the Algerian dialect of Arabic as well as French, and as a child you learned to speak Arabic, too.” He looked across the valley toward the village perched atop the hillock. “This is another thing you and I have in common. I, too, learned to speak a bit of Arabic as a child. It was the only way I could communicate with our neighbors from the tribe of Ismael.”

For many years, he continued, life was good for the Mizrahi clan and the rest of France’s Jews. Shamed by the Holocaust, the French kept their traditional anti-Semitism in check. But then the demographics of the country began to change. France’s Muslim population exploded in size, far eclipsing the small, vulnerable Jewish community, and the oldest hatred returned with a vengeance.

“Your mother and father had seen this movie before, as children in Algeria, and they weren’t about to wait for the ending. And so for the second time in their lives they packed their bags and fled, this time to Israel. And you, after a period of prolonged indecision, decided to join them.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about myself?”

“Forgive me, Natalie, but we’ve had our eye on you for some time. It is a habit of ours. Our service is constantly on the lookout for talented young immigrants and Jewish visitors to our country. The diaspora,” he added with a smile, “has its advantages.”

“How so?”

“Languages, for one. I was recruited because I spoke German. Not classroom German or audiotape German, but real German with the Berlin accent of my mother.”

“I presume you also knew how to fire a gun.”

“Not very well, actually. My IDF career was unremarkable, to say the least. I was much better with a paintbrush than I was with a gun. But this is unimportant,” he added. “What I really want to know is why you were reluctant to come to Israel.”

“I considered France my home. My career, my life,” she added, “was in France.”

“But you came here nonetheless.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to be separated from my parents.”

“You are a good child?”

“I am an only child.”

“Like me.”

She was silent.

“We like people of good character, Natalie. We’re not interested in people who desert their wives and children and don’t look after their parents. We employ them as paid sources if we have to, but we don’t like having them in our midst.”

“How do you know I’m—”

“A person of good character? Because we’ve been watching you, quietly and from a distance. Don’t worry, we’re not voyeurs unless we have to be. We’ve allowed you a zone of privacy, and we’ve averted our eyes whenever possible.”

“You had no right.”

“Actually,” he said, “we had every right. The rules that govern our conduct give us a certain room to maneuver.”

“Do they allow you to read other people’s mail?”

“That is our business.”

“I want those letters back.”

“What letters are those?”

“The letters you took from my bedroom.”

Gabriel looked reproachfully at Uzi Navot, who shrugged his heavy shoulders, as if to say it was possible — in fact, it was doubtless true — that certain private letters had been pinched from Natalie’s apartment.

“Your property,” said Gabriel apologetically, “will be returned as soon as possible.”

“How thoughtful of you.” Her voice contained a knife’s edge of resentment.

“Don’t be angry, Natalie. It’s all part of the process.”

“But I never applied to work for—”

“The Office,” said Gabriel. “We only call it the Office. And none of us ever asked to join. We are asked to join. That’s how it works.”

“Why me? I know nothing of your world or what you do.”

“I’ll let you in on another little secret, Natalie. None of us do. One doesn’t earn a master’s degree in how to be an intelligence officer. One is smart, one is innovative, one has certain skills and personality traits, and the rest one learns. Our training is very rigorous. No one, not even the British, trains their spies as well as we do. When we’re finished with you, you’ll no longer be one of us. You’ll be one of them.”

“Who?”

Gabriel lifted his gaze toward the Arab village again. “Tell me something, Natalie. What is the language of your dreams?”

“French.”

“What about Hebrew?”

“Not yet.”

“Never?”

“No, never.”