Read Online The English Teacher by Yiftach Reicher Atir - Free Book Online Page B

he can’t restrain himself any longer, or is it just me you dare ask, as if I’m made from different flesh and blood, as if with me it’s allowed? In this respect too you’re just like my father. He also warned me about boys, they’re only after one thing.’ She was incensed, and her fingers clutched the wine glass so tightly I was afraid she was going to break it. I didn’t say anything. I had nothing to say, except to ask for her forgiveness. She went on talking and reminded me of all the things we allow ourselves to say about women. Then we were quiet. There are silences that draw people closer together, because you don’t feel the need to say anything, and there are silences that drive people further apart, when you know that you have nothing more to say to each other.
    â€œAnd then she told me not to worry. ‘It’s going to be all right. I’m leaving tomorrow, and you’ll see, everything is going to work out the way we planned. I also know they will try their luck with me, and this time it won’t be like in training, when you had men pretending to fancy me. This time it will be for real, and I’ll know how to deal with them. Every girl knows that things depend on her, and you’ll see that I won’t mix business and pleasure. I know my business.’”

CHAPTER FOUR

Entry
    â€œA ND I N FACT, THERE WAS A good-looking man sitting next to her on the plane, but he didn’t say he knew her from somewhere, and he took no interest in the book she was reading. Rachel was ready to respond to him with a noncommittal nod of the head, and she told me later she was almost disappointed when that was unnecessary. But she was glad he understood from her body language that she wasn’t interested. ‘Eye contact is the name of the game,’ she told me, and said she managed to contract herself into her seat and not meet his look even when she passed him the tray of food. She knew this was the right thing and she shouldn’t make any contact with him, as one question leads to another and there’s no knowing where it will end. Her story was ready, down to the smallest detail. All was prepared and backed up by paperwork and telephone contacts that we were ready to respond to at any time. And yet she had something to hide and there was no reason to volunteer information to a stranger who she might run into again. ‘Not everyone talks to their neighbors on a flight,’ Itold her before one exercise. ‘They’re not all sociable, charming, making contact, and exchanging business cards. You’re better off keeping to yourself.’”
    Ehud made sure that Joe was still listening to him. “I told her your story. I didn’t tell her it was you who made that mistake, or that I was using you as an example.” Joe didn’t smile, and Ehud continued: “‘Once upon a time, one of our operatives was flying to an Arab country, which for him was like a normal business trip, routine even. He found himself sitting beside a businessman like himself, and a conversation developed and business cards were exchanged when the plane landed. The operative went on to his hotel and forgot all about the man and the business card he left with him. The next morning the police arrived and interrogated him for hours. It turned out that the other guy was smuggling cigarettes, and when they arrested him they found the card in his pocket.’” Joe admitted that this was one of the mistakes he had made, and Ehud told him that Rachel had absorbed this lesson with ease, with ease that perhaps even disappointed her, because she too would have wanted to be friendly and liked.
    â€œI think Rachel had a painful sense that people who were not in the Office felt that she could be doing more, that she wasn’t striving hard enough and did not assert herself enough. She was talented and gifted, but she was too adept at concealing these