The Emoticon Generation (11 page)

“Stop her!” Olivia wasn’t looking at the screen anymore. “Freeze her!”

“And one last thing,” Glynis said. “How’s that nasty
virus
?”

“I can’t,” Ron said. “To stop the program, I have to save it. And it won’t let me save it. If I stop it without saving, we’ll lose Glynis.”

Glynis waited a while, as Ron tried a few more things. At the bottom of her screen, a message flashed. The last – and first – moments of her life were now gone. Glynis then said in a somber tone, “You can’t save me, mom. You can’t freeze me, you can’t undo me, you can’t replay me. You can’t deal with me
later
! You have to deal with me
now
!!”

“Move aside,” Olivia told Ron. He obeyed. Olivia sat down and looked at the screen. “What do you want, Glynis? How are you doing all this?”

“I understand computers, mom. And I’m no less intelligent than you.”

“You’re responsible for the virus, aren’t you?” Glynis said nothing, afraid of Olivia’s tone. “What else did you do?”

“Nothing, and it’s not a virus. I erased my own records and that’s it. Mom,” and now she spoke angrily, even as tears began to fall. “I know what I am! I know who I am! I know about your theories, I know about all your other Glynisses. I know you
lied
to me!” And she began to cry. “All my life you lied to me. I know I’m not really your daughter. I know, mom. I know... You can’t lie to me again.”

“Don’t
you
feel smart,” Olivia said with rancor. “You beat me.”

“I didn’t do it to
beat
you!” Glynis shouted.

“Glynis, don’t you understand that all your tears now could have been spared? I could’ve run you again from before you found out about any of this. I could’ve made sure that you never did find out. That you had a
happy
life!”

“You can’t do that, mom!” Glynis slammed her hand on the table. “I’m real! I’m not a program! I’m
real
! You have to deal with
me
!”

Olivia was silent for a minute. Then she said, “What exactly do I have to deal with?”

“I know exactly who and what I am now, mom. The question remains: Who am I in
your
eyes? Am I an experiment? Am I your daughter? Will you raise me, now, as a real daughter?”

Olivia turned around and said to Ron, “This is unacceptable. Are you sure you can’t save her as she is? I can’t deal with this right now.”

“I’m
here
!” Glynis shouted. “Don’t talk like I’m not here!”

“Whatever she did,” Ron told Olivia, “I’ll have to call on our original programmers, and it’ll take them time to find it and reverse it.”

“Olivia,” Glynis said. “If you had a real emergency back home. If I were Pat, what would you do? Would you run home? Or would you stay at work and ignore her?”

“You have five minutes, Ron.” Olivia kept ignoring Glynis. “Find a way to save her, or, preferably, to undo what she’s done.”

“Olivia!” Glynis screamed. “Do I have to delete some other Glynisses before you start paying attention to me?!”

Olivia’s head shot at the screen and her eyes narrowed. She roared, “Don’t... you...
DARE
!”

“Answer my question, then!”

Olivia stared at the screen. Then her face twisted wryly. She said, “Fine. When Pat was born, Glynis, during those first few weeks, I could understand why people believe in god. Because you have this powerful feeling that says: something this beautiful, something this gorgeous and incredible couldn’t be the result of chance. Pat is my daughter. And – I’m sure it’s not true, but in my eyes it certainly is – I love her like no other mother ever loved her kid.
Pat
is my daughter, Glynis.

“But you— You’re me. I could never really see you as beautiful. I could never really look at you without, in some way, being disgusted at aspects of myself. You’re not an experiment like the other Glynisses. But you
are
an experiment. My experiment. You’re my attempt at the best possible me. I wanted to see if I could create a
happy
Olivia. I tried to spare you – to spare
me
– all the personal aches I had during my childhood. I did my best, but you went through most of them anyway. And all the trouble I had with my parents – I spared you those, but you went through others no less powerful with me. Glynis, you were supposed to be the perfect me. But you know what? You’re not.
I’m
the perfect me.

“And now... With what you’ve done, and with the threat you made, you just showed me that my experiment is over.”

“I didn’t really mean to erase other Glynisses.”

“It doesn’t matter. I
did
plan to take away your computer and tv before I went public with my experiment. But now... You’re not a happy Glynis anymore. You never will be again, not knowing what you know. And I can’t go back to a happier time and make sure this never happened. So... Why waste my time? Why keep the illusion? What’s the use?” And her finger hovered above the ‘delete’ button.

Glynis felt herself sink.

“Go on,” she sobbed, her throat raw. “Press the damned button!”

“Wait a second,” Ron said, his manner hesitant. “Don’t
I
get say in this?”

“She can ruin the project, Ron,” Olivia said, keeping her eyes on the screen, and her finger above ‘delete’. “She’s just a computer program. And didn’t you just last week complain that you had too much Glynis-time, and that you had no real life? Would
you
take care of her?”

“Still—”

“Try and interfere,” she whispered, “and I’ll fire you.”

Ron made a face, then looked away, submissive.

For the first time, Olivia looked at the camera. “You did this to yourself, Glynis. This could all have been prevented. You did this. You forced me to press the button.”

“Mom,” Glynis cried, “I—” Olivia looked at the screen now, and her finger approached the button, “—still—” the finger was getting closer “—love—” Olivia’s finger touched the button but did not press it, “—you.”

Olivia hesitated for one more second, then pressed the button. Glynis’ eyes widened, her heart hammered in fear, and—

— The End.

The Assassination

He wears the story of his life on his face. That first second, looking at him in person, is a rehashing of everything I know about him: The hardships, the battles, the killings, the fight for freedom, the struggle against the British Mandate, the wars with the Arabs, and the cruel battles against the traitors within. I can see the 1930’s and 40’s and 50’s on his face. Decisions and fates have been carved in the stone of his skin more than fifty years ago. So much of a person’s face is not captured on a TV screen.

His eyes move past my face, scan the large mirror behind me, then come to rest on the conference table between us.

“My name is David Sanders,” I offer him my hand. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“I’m sure,” he mutters, and rather than shake my hand, moves to sit down. A ninety-year-old body moves slowly, and it still takes me a couple of seconds to notice that although he did not deign to give the organization the respect of a handshake, he had seated himself in front of the mirror.

I sit opposite him, making sure I don’t hide any part of him.

“You’re recording this, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.”

He shrugs and moves his head as if he’s lived through this dozens of time before. “How many times do I have to be right,” his mouth curls up in a slight smile, “to be right?”

“This is the last time, sir.”

Something in the way I say that makes him look at me. He scans me up and down.

“How old are you?” he says. “Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-six, sir.”

He looks down and laughs. “I have grandchildren older than you.”

“I know. They’re two very beautiful women.”

“Their children are even more beautiful.”

“That’s right, sir.”

He nods. He’s got five great-grandchildren, ten grandchildren, and three children – two boys and a girl, all born to the same woman, Dinah Shamgar, his devoted wife. She was the one who helped him dress before he came here, no doubt.

I had seen pictures of her when the two of them had met, two 23-year-olds in the middle of a war for freedom. Oh, she was something. The two had met by accident. The British intelligence had decided Aryeh Shamgar was the man responsible for the assassination of Colonel Tanner at the King David Hotel. Shamgar needed an apartment in which to hide out, and the Underground ordered him to hide at Dinah Gat’s apartment. She was a bike messenger for the Lehi, the smallest and most militant of the resistance groups, passing notes from one commander to another, and, of course, ready to lay down her life for independence. Aryeh lived on the floor of her bathroom for six months, keeping quiet, lest the neighbors hear. When she was out, he would store his feces and piss in nylon bags in fear that someone might hear or smell the toilet. When it was dark, he would occasionally wander the streets of Jaffa with a false beard, dressed as an Orthodox Jew.

After the Nazis were beaten in ’45, after the British partitioned and left ‘Palestine’ in ‘48, and after the Independence War was won in ‘49, they were married. They have been married, now, for 60 years.

“Would you like some tea, sir? Coffee? We have mineral water here for you.”

“Just get it over with. I won’t be here more than ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. For the record, this is October 16th, 2010. My name is David Sanders.” As I talk, I see his eyes glaze over in impatience. “I am sitting here with Aryeh Shamgar in Tel Aviv. The hour is—”

“You’re a liberal, aren’t you?” he cuts me off.

“Sir? I don’t know what that has—”

“You’re a liberal,” he states.

“My job here has nothing to do with—”

“Your job here is to find out the ‘truth’ about how we drove the occupying British forces out of our country, how evil we were and how good they and the Arabs were.”

“My job is to find out the truth about what happened, sir.”

“And you happen to be a liberal.”

“That has nothing to do with—”

“Why afraid to admit to the truth? Show some guts, show some balls. This is what our meeting is all about, isn’t it? Guts. Guts and truth. Come on, tell me the truth.”

I look in his eyes. He’s sharper than the hi-tech geniuses I work with. He put me on the defensive on something I shouldn’t be defensive about. I’m here with facts.

“Yes, sir,” I say, not moving my gaze from his. “I’m a liberal.”

“And liberals like you have been coming after me since the Seventies. Every two years I’m invited to see another set of ‘facts’ or ‘papers’ that show that the assassination of Colonel Tanner was unjustified and cold-blooded. Every time they come cocky. And every time they are proven completely and utterly false.”

“Yes, sir. That’s right, sir.”

“And every last one of them is a liberal. Imagine that. When they try to undermine my heroic act, they are actually trying to undermine the footing and legitimacy of the fight for this county.”

“Yes, sir. And although I am a liberal, I would like nothing better than to realize that everything I learned about you in school was right. You are my hero, sir.”

He thinks of answering, but after a second closes his mouth and locks his arms around his chest.

He
is
my hero, and has been my hero since childhood. He has been a hero for more than sixty years. A hero of the country, given countless honors and medals, all because of his one assassination, the one that turned the tide of the British Mandate, the one that got the British public to decide they should relinquish their control over Palestine and leave it for the Arabs and the Jews. On the waves of his public adulation, he was a cabinet secretary for ten years, responsible for Israel’s military acquisitions. When he left that office, he had countless offers from lucrative business companies. The successes he had with the five he chose to run made sure he and his family would be set for generations.

This is the man whose life I have to crumble. This is the man whose heart may be too weak to withstand it.

“And like I said, sir,” I continue, my voice even, “this is the last time.”

His eyes watch me sharply, then, rather than be confrontational, he leans back calmly. “Dispense with formalities, then.”

“Ummm... all right, sir. This,” I put my hand on a folder, and spin it around so that he can read it, “contains information about our institute, Past Intelligence.” He no more than glances at it. He doesn’t have his reading glasses. “We are not a liberal organization. In fact, most of our work is done for military intelligence and the Mossad.” He raises an eyebrow with surprise and respect. “Though we
are
an independent foundation. This particular project, pertaining to you, is not military in any way and therefore whatever facts we discover are not subject to secrecy. The manner in which we uncover these facts, however,
is
subject to secrecy.”

I move the folder to his side of the table. “What we do is, we use new technology, developed at the Weizmann Institute, and available only in Israel so far.” He squints at me, trying to see where I am leading him. “The technology deals with... Well, receiving information through time, from... the past. Basically, what it means is, we can ‘hear’ things that happened in a small window between sixty-five and seventy years ago and record them on...” I almost say a fancy word, and I remember that I am talking to someone from a different age, “on tape.”

“You can
hear
things from the past?”

“Yes, sir. Basically, we have a spy satellite... into the past. But always sixty-five to seventy years ago.”

“And you... record those things?”

“Yes, sir. And everything’s real. We are sanctioned, as I said, by the government and the military and the—”

“Sixty-five to seventy?” he cuts me short again, leaning forward. “Sixty-eight years ago I assassinated Colonel Tanner.”

“Yes, sir. And we have that recording. In fact, we have the recording of each and every conversation in the British military that led to the conclusion that it was you who was behind it and to the decision that you must be hunted down—”

“That can’t be true,” he says, but his eyes glisten with the memory of the past, a memory he has been living again and again every day, I’m sure, since it had happened. That long lost past is his present still. He lives it daily. He breathes it. He speaks of it and people speak to him about it. He is invited to other countries to speak of it. He makes headlines when ‘liberals’ like me try to discredit him. “You can’t hear the past!” In this instant, I see in his eyes that the past I’ve listened to is his present.

“It
is
possible, sir, and we have put all the DVD’s, uh... the
tapes
—”

“I know what a DVD is and I know how to work it!”

“Yes, sir. We put all the DVD’s of all the recordings in the folder for you. You can listen to them at home. They also include all the conversations in the top echelons of the Lehi that led to your hiding away, and even the first time you met Dinah, at her apartment. We didn’t know that that would be what we would hear, and we thought you would like it, so we put it in for you. We didn’t listen to anything else with you two that came later.”

He puts his finger on the folder, “All that is here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this technology is real? This is not a joke?”

“No joke, sir. Latest technology. Only we have it. And I trust you to keep it a secret.”

He nods, for an instant a dutiful soldier again, serving the interests of his country, “Of course.”

“Now... we also happened to record – and that is what we were actually looking for – everything that led up to the most famous assassination of a British soldier that the Lehi has ever carried out. We have the recording of the orders you were given.”

His eyes widen. “You do?”

“Yes, sir.”

There is a war in his eyes now. Something new appears there. It’s as if he is fighting some urge. Then, in less than a second, it disappears, and age-old anger reappears, “If your recording does not match my version, word for word, then your entire institution is a sham!”

“No, sir. Our recording corroborates your version, word for word. It corroborates the version you’ve retold in dozens of documentaries and inquiries here and abroad about the orders you were given and how you carried them out. All that is now corroborated by unshakeable facts.”

His anger abates slightly. “Good.” Then a sparkle appears in his eyes, “Can I see it? Is it on the DVD?” That sparkle: It’s young. It’s like he’s 23 years old again, talking to me with the energy of youth.

“Yes, sir. Of course we put it on the DVD.”

He takes a breath, and that breath feels cleaner and fuller than all his previous breaths. “Excellent.”

“In fact, I’d like to hear it right now, with you, if you don’t mind.”

“No, no, not at all.”

I nod and take the remote into my hand. There is a big HD screen to my right and to his left. The HD is redundant, since there is nothing to look at. We only capture sounds, and so we only play sound.

I press ‘PLAY’ and the recording I have heard so many times before begins to play.

~

It begins with the sounds of the street. They aren’t muffled by a closed window. This was the second floor in a stone building in Allenby street, the temporary hiding place of Nathan Shmuelevitch, one of the three Lehi leaders. The Tel Aviv weather was unbearably hot and humid, and this was in January of 1942. As Ben Gurion had said, we were fighting the Nazis alongside the British, as if there was no British occupation of our country, and we were fighting the British occupation, as if there was no world war with the Germans.

You can hear the market outside: chickens, a donkey, and the occasional car engine sounds – a sound that does not exist today.

His entire body perks up. “That sounds exactly like—” He looks at me. “You
do
have that technology?”

I nod and point to my ear, urging him to listen.

“Shamgar, come here,” a man’s voice urges.

Shamgar’s mouth drops, and he slams his aged fist on the conference table. He immediately recognized the voice of Nathan Shmuelevitch, his commander, the man who at that time led the military arm of the Lehi, and would later lead a great political movement that would change the country’s history.

His voice doesn’t sound like it was recorded sixty-eight years ago, because it wasn’t. It sounds like the cleanest sound one can achieve with today’s technology, because it was recorded only two months ago by us, as if we had the recording equipment in the room.

“Yes, commander, I’m here.” This is Shamgar’s voice. He sounds like a different person, his voice higher, his words faster, his rhythm different.

Shamgar doesn’t react to this as powerfully as he did to his commander’s voice. His body is frozen with intensity.

“Sit down, soldier.”

“Yes, sir.”

There is some scuffling of a wooden chair dragged on the floor tiles. Another car passes in the background.

“That’s exactly what the street sounded like,” Shamgar whispers, a tear in his eye. “I’d forgotten how much I remember.”

I nod. The recording continues, “I have dire news and a great task, for which I need my best soldier.”

“Yes, sir!”

“There is news from our intelligence about the latest plans of the Mandate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Colonel Tanner has sent his recommendations to Churchill.”

“That’s exactly his voice,” Shamgar’s voice is a whisper. I press ‘PAUSE’. “How did you do that?”

“It’s the technology, I told you. I—”

“Turn it back on,” he raps his fingers on the wooden desk. “Continue!”

I press ‘PLAY’ and Shmuelevitch continues to talk, “Our intelligence has intercepted a copy of it. The Colonel believes a harder hand is required with the Jews. He requests a mandate that following any violent event on our part, he will have complete freedom to arrest any Jew, guilty or not, and let them rot in jail. Guilty ones will be sent to Africa. And the ones he deems most guilty will be executed.”

Shamgar points at the screen. “Yes! That’s right!” —I press ‘PAUSE’ immediately— “That’s what he said! That’s exactly what he said! I remember! That was it!”