Chapter 2
604 Words
2
Mossad Headquarters, Tel Aviv, Israel, Nuclear Detection Lab. Present Day.
The phone rang for the fifth time in the past five minutes. Talia Stiel looked at it and shook her head. She knew the calls were for her but had been trying to ignore them. Her work to develop a technology to detect nuclear material was so close to being finished that she could no longer stand the repeated interruptions. But on the fourth ring, she stood and tightened the band holding her long black hair into a ponytail. She snatched the phone off the receiver.
“Talia Stiel,” she said.
“Dr. Stiel?” a female voice on the other end said. “We’ve been trying to reach you. This is Ayala, in Human Resources? We’ve got an emergency call for you. It’s a family emergency, I’m afraid. You’ll need to call Sourasky Medical Center right away.”
Talia’s posture straightened. “Family emergency? Is it Moshe?”
“No, ma’am. We notified Director Himmelreich as well.”
“But I don’t have any other family.”
“Please,” the woman said, “it sounded urgent.”
Talia shook her head. “I said I don’t have any other family. You’ve made a mistake.”
“No, ma’am. They said—”
“Your parents can only die once.” Her slightly warped sense of levity went nowhere, and all she heard was silence. “Fine, whatever,” she said. “You have a number?”
The woman relayed the phone number and reiterated the urgency of the call. Talia stood from behind a wide research table and caught the reflection of herself in the glass wall lining the laboratory. Ever since her last birthday, the “big three-oh,” as she had called it, Talia found herself more conscious of her looks.
Like many Israeli women, she was trim and often found men looking at her. But today, in the final stages of her research project, she decided the long hours were beginning to take a toll. She stared into her reflection and smoothed a wrinkle in her form-fitting skirt. She dialed the number. “I still don’t see how I can have a family emergency,” she said to herself.
The phone rang twice, and on the other end, a female voice answered in a hurried, yet polite, tone. “Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Intensive Care Unit.”
“Yes, my name is Talia Stiel. I think there’s been a mistake, I’ve been asked to call this number. Some kind of family emergency?”
“Yes, Miss Stiel. We’ve been trying to reach you. It’s about your grandfather. He’s here in the intensive care unit. I’m afraid it’s quite serious. You’ll want to get here as soon as possible.”
“My grandfather?” Talia said as she pressed the phone harder to her ear. “I don’t have a grandfather. Both my grandfathers died years ago.”
“Miss Stiel, please. He’s calling for you. It’s all we can do to keep him calm. The doctors say his condition is grave. You must come immediately.”
“I appreciate your concern, but you’ve got the wrong person. Like I said, I don’t have a grandfather. I don’t have a mother or father anymore, for that matter. I’m the only Stiel left.” Across the phone line, Talia heard what sounded like the woman standing up from a swivel chair.
“He said you wouldn’t believe it.” The nurse’s voice sounded course, like one trying to choke down the day’s frustrations. “Here, I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.” She sounded like she was reading from a piece of paper. “You are Talia Stiel, are you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“And your mother’s maiden name was Mizrah?”
Talia’s voice flattened. “Yes.”
“Your father was Avraham Stiel?”
Talia swallowed. “Yes.”
“The patient here is named Yosef Stiel. He says he’s your grandfather. He’s insistent about it. He’s the one who told us where to call you.”
Her legs wobbled. “But . . . ” Talia said as she sat. “Yosef Stiel died when I was five years old. I distinctly remember it.”
“No, ma’am. He’s lying right here, and he’s asking for you.” A moment of awkward silence played out. “He said if you still didn’t believe it was him to tell you he used to call you Peanut?”
Talia dropped the phone, then clutched her hands to her mouth.
The nurse on the other end of the line said, “Hello? Miss Stiel? Miss Stiel?”
- Writer
