13

Research. It began with research on a campus computer. It began by sifting through archived newspaper articles, this time seeking information rather than an emotional conversion, as I had with Kathy. It began by zeroing in on the man I had been avoiding, whose existence I had been unable to face, afraid of what such an encounter might bring.

I learned his name – Mohammad Odeh. Learned he was the one who placed the explosives-filled backpack in the cafeteria where Jamie sat, eating.

The one who worked for Hebrew University as a painter.

The one disguised as a student, waiting in line with perfumed hands.

The one who ignited a cell phone, calling the bag next to Marla and Ben, a folded paper balancing on top of it, a paper Jamie ducked beneath when his thumb opposed “send.”

The one who murdered.

The one who tried to murder.

The one who shoved hammers under my pillow and xylophones against our door.

The one who fashioned bereaved parents and siblings and lovers from nails and bolts and scrap metal.

The one with a young son, an infant girl.

The one nobody would understand. Ever.

The one I would eventually decide to confront.

I learned his name. And it became personal, this ability to point and say “Mohammad,” the primordial act of naming, of identifying with syllables, with established grunts and pauses, feeling as powerful as creation itself. He was named. He existed. But further details provided by the Jerusalem Post and The Times of London encouraged me to remain dispassionate: he was part of a Hamas terror cell, just one of many who had perpetrated, with the push of a button, numerous mass killings in restaurants and on buses across Israel. He was presented as another generic representation of evil, a representation that was comforting, that coaxed me into believing there were no fingers to point, no what-ifs to consider – it had just happened, because evil happens, and that was all.

 

Newspapers:	Forget Mohammad. He is just an archetype.
Me:	Sure thing.7

 

At first, I was prepared to accept this – to accept things the way I had for years. I focused on piecing together the logistics of how the bombing had happened, keeping a healthy dose of emotional restraint on hand, moving from A to B to C with the cold clarity of a statistician. But then I found something strange, something wrong. A misquote. Or a typo. It was embedded within an Associated Press article covering Mohammad’s 2002 capture:

After his arrest, Odeh told investigators he was sorry for what he had done since so many people died in the university attack, [Israeli] officials said.

Odeh told investigators he was sorry. It had to be a mistake – ideologically crazed terrorists don’t apologize. They don’t express remorse. They praise the struggle, hold up the jihadist’s banner and pro claim, in the name of Allah, for continued acts against the infidels. They are programmed, robotic, repeating the same predictable refrains while marching, faces disguised, guns raised toward the sky. Death to all Jews. Praised be the martyrs. Allahu Akbar. God is great.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Mohammad was not human. He did not reflect any recognizable sliver of the world I recognized as sane, rational, acceptable. He was not sorry. He could not possibly be sorry.

 

Me:	I thought you said he was an archetype.
Newspapers:	Oops.

 

I was on unstable ground, unable to discern where to step given this unanticipated, unmapped terrain. Not only was Mohammad named, not only did he exist, but his existence was abruptly made impossible. How could a person capable of orchestrating and executing the mass murder of innocent college students have the capacity for genuine contrition? How could a member of Hamas let slip such a statement? Odeh told investigators he was sorry. It was incomprehensible. I wanted to pass it off as editorial malpractice, or at the very least an inauthentic response to days of interrogation, and possibly torture, hoping the word sorry had been squeezed out of him as Israeli police poured water into Mohammad’s mouth. But two items from the article forced me to think otherwise. First, he was the only one of fifteen terrorists captured to have made such an expression. Second, Odeh’s family in East Jerusalem responded with disbelief:

“My brother just goes from home to work … and has nothing to do with any other thing,” Samr Odeh told the Associated Press outside his East Jerusalem home as Mohammad’s six-year-old son Hamza stood crying nearby at the mention of his father. “I deny the charges that the Israelis are trying to put on him.”⁸

It was clear that Mohammad’s family did not consider it possible that he could have bombed a cafeteria, did not want to consider it possible. This was not an ideologically extreme clan, a clan eager to embrace a son’s and brother’s martyrdom and proclaim his glory. Instead, they denied the veracity of the accusation. Samr’s words indicated a family horrified by Israel’s claim.

Mohammad had come from what appeared on the surface to be a moderate family, a family unwilling to accept his involvement with Hamas, with terrorism. But Mohammad had done it. He had admitted to doing it. And according to anonymous officials quoted in this reputable media outlet, he had expressed remorse. I couldn’t digest any of it, couldn’t stomach the digestive process. The experience felt akin to when, after years of vegetarianism, I broke down and ate two hotdogs laced with sauerkraut during a University of Georgia football game. The lining of my stomach had not been prepared to process a pound of hormone-filled beef then, and today it wasn’t prepared to process the incongruity of learning that the terrorist who had tried to kill Jamie might be sorry for what he’d done.

I had spent years giving little thought to the fact that an actual person had been responsible for the bombing. Now, I was consumed by thoughts of the perpetrator as a fellow human, a remorseful criminal, a man with a crying son and a traumatized family. It was all I could consider, and such considering induced digestive distress. I was ill.

One evening soon afterward, Jamie and I went out to eat at Indochine, a Thai establishment whose interior glittered with emerald green and polished gold, its self-contained fountains trickling steadily, soothing streams in the background. In the foreground, a costumed waiter took our order. For Jamie, vegetable drunken delight, a rich serving of bamboo shoots, lotus roots, and broccoli drenched in a mild wine sauce. For me, green curry aubergines, a dish full of coconut and eggplant, a dish I couldn’t pronounce. After we made our choices, the waiter gave us further options. Mild. Medium. Spicy. Jamie chose mild.

“How spicy is spicy?” I asked.

“It’s spicy. Do you like spicy food?”

“Sure, I can handle spicy food,” I said, needing to make up for mangling “aubergines,” for not knowing what the word meant by pretending to be a veteran of all things curried.

“Then you should be fine.”

“Wait, David, he’s not asking if you can handle it. He’s asking if you want it,” Jamie interrupted.

“I know.” I looked at the waiter confidently. “Spicy.”

“Very well,” he said, taking the menus and departing with our order.

Jamie looked at me. “I didn’t know you like really spicy stuff.”

“Of course I do.”

“Really?”

“I’m sure it will be good.”

As we nibbled on a salad with peanuts and caramelized shallots, I wanted to tell Jamie, “This guy who tried to kill you might have expressed remorse,” wanted to say, “This fuck might have said he’s sorry,” wanted to say, “Can you believe such bullshit?” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t mention it. This was my process. This was my game, a game to be played solo, because Jamie had already moved beyond the attack, had shaken it off in ways I couldn’t seem to replicate. So I kept quiet as our meals were delivered to us.

Lifting a piece of tofu between pinched chopsticks, I slid it into my mouth and began choking, the curry burning the back of my throat.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded, fist pressed to my mouth, head bent over the plate. The food was too hot. It was more than I could bear.

But I ate anyway, choking through dinner with my eyes tearing and my lips burning, sporadically giving myself over to convulsive fits between bites. I was determined to finish. Jamie glanced up sympathetically as she ate. All I could think was, Just finish the meal. Just finish it.