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“Close your eyes and listen. Listen to the silent screams of terrified mothers, the prayers of anguished old men and women. Listen to the tears of children. Jewish children, a beautiful little girl among them, with golden hair, whose vulnerable tenderness has never left me. Look and listen as they walk toward dark flames so gigantic that the planet itself seems in danger” - Elie Wiesel
It was a sunny Friday afternoon in Haifa, when she heard that name for the first time. She was spending some time with her grandmother before sundown, listening to the stories about her life in Europe. If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear puttering from the kitchen and even the distant waves crashing against the shore.
After having put on her best dress, a pink gown with lace and ruffles, her mother was walking through the house, checking if everything was ready for Shabbat .
Rivka had just put the finishing touches to the table, decorated with seashells and fresh flowers. The Challah was ready and the rest of the food had been stashed in the warming drawer.
“Perfect”, she murmured, then went to the living room to check on her daughter: “ Zivaleh , are you ready? Did you put on your pretty dress?”
Ziva was sitting on the couch with her Savta , while her Abba and her little sister Tali were taking a nap on the armchair nearby. She was wearing a light blue dress and white sandals.
“ Ken , Ima ”, she answered, before looking at her grandmother, tilting her head, and asking: “And then? What happened then?”.
The old woman sighed, before sitting straighter, clutching her Magen David and murmuring: “Then Mengele came”.
“Wake up, you”.
Curled up on the sandy floor of her dusty cell, Ziva David barely had time to open her eyes, before the first kick to her stomach came. For a second, she thought that it was all a bad dream. She imagined being back in Haifa, with her mother and her sister, listening to the stories of her Savta . When the second blow came, exactly where the first had been, she knew it had been just a product of distant memories. The reality she was in was way scarier than her grandmother's stories about Auschwitz Birkenau.
The man in front of her grabbed her by the shoulder, the same one they put a blade in a couple of days prior. It was a deliberate blow to a body they were systematically trying to break.
“Stand up, bitch”, he screamed, before starting to pull.
Trying to bite back a snarky remark and suppress a sob at the same time, Ziva did as she was told. She knew the drill: they would cover her head with that smelly dusty burlap sack, then they'd push her inside a room where Saleem would be waiting for her. Depending on the day and on the mood of his men, the terrorist would either try to pry intel from her or, more often than not, just let them use her like a broken sex doll.
That day, however, there was no one waiting for her at the end of the corridor. Just an empty room with a small cage and a bright neon light pointed directly at it.
“Maybe this time you’ll change your mind”, the guard threw her on the ground, before kicking her in that cage as if she were an animal. Spitting directly on her face, he closed the door of that damn tiny prison and groaned: “Stupid bitch”.
Trying not to look directly into the light and ignoring the pain in her bones, Ziva took a deep breath and fixed her gaze on a cigarette burn on her right hand. Concentrating on something specific, just like focusing on distant memories, did help her escape from the gruesome situation she was in. She had learnt that particular trick during her training: Ari taught it to her.
“How is training coming along?”.
It was the third night of Chanukah and Abba was not home, despite it being the first year without Tali. Ziva was almost tempted to call Aunt Nettie and invite herself over when she received a phone call from her brother.
“Okay, I guess”, she answered, while checking the pantry for a snack, “It’s different from regular training, but I think I can do good there”.
Just after Yom Kippur , one of her father’s colleagues had approached her offering further training for a highly specialized unit. Being determined to make her family proud, she accepted without thinking too much about it.
“We are so very pleased with your decision”, her Abba had said to her on the phone on the first day of her training as a Kidon Officer, “You’re doing good, Ziva”.
The training was intense, a lot of the Kidonim she met the first day barely lasted a week before giving up. It was physically challenging and mentally draining. Every night, despite the pain she was often in, Ziva would almost immediately succumb to a dreamless slumber.
“Did they start to teach you interrogation techniques already?”, Ari asked at the exact moment she found a packet of Bamba .
“Some of it, yes”, she answered while munching on her snack.
“Are they teaching you how to withstand pain?”, he then probed, “Do you know how to get in your own mind?”.
The young girl sighed, before closing the pantry and walking to the kitchen. Her Abba did not like crumbs on the upholstery and she was not in the mood for a discussion this futile.
“Not really, no”, she mumbled, feeling the pressure of wanting to impress her big brother with tales as adventurous as his own.
“Well, then let me explain it to you…”.
She did not know how many hours had passed. Maybe it had been a whole day or two, maybe she had just been put there. Like so often in that camp, it was difficult to keep track of the passing of time. She tried and failed at it more than once.
Just as expected, she could not fall asleep in that cage, yet she felt her body almost shutting down. Every time her head lulled in front of her, ready to give in to that unbearable exhaustion, a loud bang made her jump. A loud noise made her whimper in fear, bringing her back to the terrifying reality she was in. She was so tired, her legs were cramping and she could not move. Her mouth was dry and her stomach was so empty that she could taste the acid coming from it. Despite trying to escape in her own mind she even managed to piss her pants twice and the smell was revolting in that suffocatingly small space.
“Well this is a pitiful sight”.
The voice of Saleem Uhlman made her flinch, while the loud creaking of that old rusty door instantly had her jolt on the spot. The last time he saw her, her face was so bruised and swollen that she could barely make out his features. They let the burlap sack on her head and used her as a target practice for the new recruits, who would laugh every time she fell to the ground. Like every so often, that night she hoped for her bruises to never heal. She prayed for those men to bring her death.
“Do you know what this is?”.
The terrorist pointed at something on her left, before smiling that sly smile of his. Ziva moved her head slightly to the side only to flinch. Her whole body clenched to no avail: she felt the urine trickle on her leg long before smelling it. She held her breath, trying so desperately not to look as terrified as she felt. Next to her cage, directly pointed at her, stood a bright red flamethrower.
“I could just burn you alive, you know? They would never recognize what would be left of you”, he stopped talking and started to laugh, “Come to think of it, they would never find you anyway”.
When she arrived there, she still couldn’t believe it.
She saw the police cars, the fire department still hosing down the remnants of the bus and the rabbi from the Synagogue nearby already praying for the souls of the victims. Nonetheless, she still hoped to have been called by mistake.
A couple of hours prior, her instructor had taken her to the side to share the little information he had, before suggesting that she call her father. Abba did not pick up, his secretary had no idea where he was and, despite knowing better, she decided to call the phone number that Ari made her promise to use only in case of emergency.
“Shh, breathe motek”, he tried to reassure her with a softness he so rarely used, “You’ll be okay. I’ll call you as soon as I can”.
Approaching the scene, Ziva barely managed to contain a loud sob: Tali wasn’t there anymore. She felt it in her bones, like an ache that she could only explain to herself. Her little body had been blown up to pieces, there was nothing left of her. Despite not believing in God anymore, not after everything she saw and did, she prayed that at least her soul could find some rest. She prayed that Tali had not even realized what was happening. She hoped that she was laughing that contagious laugh of hers, the moment the bomb detonated.
Ignoring the big waves of nausea, she started looking around without even knowing what she was searching for. On her right, shiny despite the ashes that covered everything, she saw it. Hanging from a bent tinplate, the green backpack that her sister insisted on buying the year before was swinging slowly.
In that exact moment Ziva David realised that no torture would ever compare to the unspeakable pain of realising that she would never get to see her little sister again.
A loud bang on the metal cage made her jump.
Looking to her side, Ziva immediately noticed that Saleem had turned the flame thrower away from the cage. Before she could even consider feeling a weird sense of fickle relief, he turned it on.
“Do you know how painful it is to suffocate?”.
Once again, the man was hovering over her. Like so many times since she had been captured, his small frame appeared huge and threatening.
Without missing a beat, Saleem continued: “I read a lot about the Nazis and their gas chambers, while I was in Europe. I even visited one of those camps. It was extremely enlightening”.
Ziva did not utter a word: how could she?
She remembered her grandmother and the faded numbers on her arm. She used to tell her stories, her Savta. She always told her that remembering was important, even when it hurts. That never forgetting would help save lives.
“Fascinating man, that Joseph Mengele”, the man said, before looking at her with a wide grin, “I even managed to get my hands on a few of his reports”.
Before she could even register the information, someone entered the room. The hurried pace and the low whispers made her skin crawl: they loved to take their stress out on her, choking her while taking their pleasure and leaving her broken body naked on the cold dusty floor of her cell. Suddenly, the flamethrower was switched off and, once again, Saleem looked at her with a sly smile.
“It seems like we have company”, he chuckled, “Two American men decided to honor us with their visit”.
The two men left the room and, once again, Ziva David was left alone with her memories. This time, however, evoqueing those small fragments of her past hurt just a little more.
“Well, now we know that Ducky was no Doctor Mengele”.
Tony’s voice, together with that awfully poised stance, made her flinch. Even after all those years, the memories of her grandmother in Auschwitz Birkenau had the power to make her feel uncomfortable at best. She remembered her words, the pain in her voice, the empty gaze. She had a small notebook on her bedside table, her Savka . The pages were filled with names, people she knew from before and people she met in the camp. People who weren’t alive anymore except for her memories.
“We owe it to them, not to forget”, she told her once, “It’s so important, neshomeleh ”.
Micheal always said the same thing, when they were lying naked in bed talking about missions and politics.
“We carry the memories of millions of people, Ziva”, he always pointed out, “We must honor them”.
The sharp sound of a headslap and Tony’s consequent yelp interrupted her reverie.
“Go home, I’ll see you all tomorrow”, Gibbs told them, before taking his jacket and making his way down to Abby’s laboratory.
Quickly, McGee and DiNozzo packed their stuff and looked at her expectantly.
“Are you coming or what?”.
She nodded quickly, trying to ignore Tony’s worried expression.
“Let’s go”.
“Move, you bitch”.
Suddenly, someone opened the little cage she was confined in. The clanking of the metal barely covered the painful moan that she could not contain while one of Saleem’s pupils yanked her out of it and onto her feet. Before she could even begin to understand what was happening to her, the all too familiar burlap sack was put once again on her head.
“Come, you whore”, the men roughly pushed her while her legs could barely move, “We have a surprise for you”.
Ziva started panicking the moment the man spoke.
There were no surprises in Saleem’s camp: it was a never ending cycle of pain and desperation. There was no absolution to be had, she had quickly come to realize, not even for someone like her, for someone who was willing to look for it in the worst of places.
“Here she is”, Saleem greeted her, seconds before she felt him gripping her arm and pushing her on a chair.
The burlap sack was lifted off her head and, for the first time in months, Ziva saw those eyes she had so often dreamed of, at the beginning of her Aliyah. Green, deep eyes that carried so much concern, surprise and affection that she could barely contain a sob.
“How was your summer?”.
“Savta, how did you know you were going to be alright?”.
Ziva was five years old the first time she asked that question. She was sitting on the blue sofa of her grandmother’s apartment in Tel Aviv, waiting for her mother to pick her up after work.
The old woman looked at her with a small smile, before sitting next to her and clutching her Magen David. She did it more often since Ziva had started asking her all about her past. She needed some grounding, the little girl came to realize, while talking about those terrible months.
“I felt a warm feeling in my stomach, Zivaleh ”, she then answered with a small melancholic smile, “And then the soldiers came and I knew it. I knew that there was hope. That we could win that battle and many many more to come”.
The husky voice of Anthony DiNozzo Jr, bound to a chair in front of her in a terrorist camp in the outskirts of Somalia, made something in her stomach awaken. It was a warm, fuzzy sensation that she had not felt in months. Not since she left DC to find answers and absolution. It was hope, despite all odds. It was the ridiculous certainty that they could win that fight and that, little by little, she would be alright again. That maybe not immediately but, one day at a time, she wouldn’t feel so hopelessly broken anymore. That the time to push back and actually have a chance had come.
“Ziva, can you fight?”.