The catastrophe.
The war of 1948.
If it can be called a war.
When your British betrayed us, and the Zionists drove us out
of our homeland.
When I was eight, l was driven from our land.
When I was ten, I joined the Ashbal with my brothers.
Brothers.
When I was ten, I joined the Ashbal with my brothers.
See? Brothers.
It's not enough.
It sounds like Salim.
The revolutionary crowd.
Who is this?
2312.
Charmian Ross, she's an actress.
An actress? You?re kidding.
Does she have a voice?
...and we don't want our lives laid down by a multinational
corporation registered in Lichtenstein and banking in
the Dutch bloody Antilles!
What's more is I, for one, don't think the Jewish state has to be
an imperialist American garrison that treats Arabs like dirt.
Well, she's got a point.
Hi. I?m Charmian, Charmian Ross.
We are thrilled to meet you, Miss Ross. Believe me.
Please.
Shall we begin, Miss Ross?
OK...
- I?m studying architecture now. - Hm...
No Israeli soldier can doubt
the great Gadi Becker's right to live in peace.
But... is this peace?
This is about truth.
They need to believe her.
I've heard you speak their truth before.
Believed it even.
That truth cost an innocent girl?s life.
Innocent, but not clever.
Charlie here could learn from you, Gadi.
Surpass you, perhaps.
I thought Charlie was a boy's name?
We will do it right this time.
Khalil.
Who knows?
It may be an imitator.
No killing.
Autonomy.
I left my hat.
Who are you people?
Who are WE?
Come.
Who are we? We...
..are friends.
Non-sectarian, non-aligned friends,
deeply concerned, like you,
with the many wrong directions the world is taking.
Yes.
Friends who must do the unavoidable from time to time.
But friends, nonetheless.
Beautiful, isn?t it? Please, come in.
Yes, I?m sure you... you must have a thousand questions for us, Charlie.
Of course you do. You are a curious mind.
And we too also have a thousand questions for you.
Make yourself comfortable.
Freshen up, and we shall go through them all, OK?
Mm-hmm.
It's an honour.
I've heard a lot about you.
No, you haven?t.
The kids said you made a fine couple up there on the Acropolis, Gadi.
Like a pair of movie stars.
It was a beautiful moment.
Sorry.
Protocol.
I need to go for a number two.
Charlie!
You know what it cost me to get you here?
- Your decency? - Nothing so cheap.
My career.
All for you.
Didn't get what you needed in London, then?
Oh, I saw everything I needed, Charlie.
Everything to know that you are worth this very moment.
What did you say your name was?
I didn't.
How about...
...Marty?
Are you asking me or telling me?
And when God finished making me, he had a few pieces of wire left over
so he tied them up haphazardly and put together Shimon.
Say hello, Shimon.
Everyone else, I think you know.
Oh, you liar!
| suggest you listen to what they have...
And | suggest you go fuck yourself! Who are you?
Do you have a problem with Jews?
Ethnically culturally, politically.
We don't smell bad to you?
Have improper table manners?
- No, don't be stupid. - Wonderful.
Then I pray I can trust you won't jump out a window or vomit
if I say we are also citizens of Israel?
Do you have a bucket just in case?
Ha-ha! Now,
must all of us Jews pack up our belongings,
return to our former countries and begin again?
Wait for the next pogrom?
- I just want... - Peace.
Hm?
We?re not here to attack your politics, Charlie.
In fact. we love your crazy politics,
every paradox and
conflicted spurt of anger or compassion.
But we believe in a bigger you.
That you have talent to waste and you believe it is being wasted.
And if you decide to collaborate with us on this performance,
I swear to God
you will never be wasted again.
Put in its simplest form,
we?re mounting a production.
- Hmm? - Now, there will be no cut,
no curtain, constant improvisation.
Well, shit!
I've been kidnapped by an experimental theatre company.
Experimental, certainly.
Your audience, they won't even know they are watching.
But they will be grateful.
Kids, their parents, innocent bystanders who?d get a piece
of shrapnel in their throat when a bomb goes off right beside them,
were it not for you.
Should you want to go home of course, back to your, er...
...pub theatres...
...your lonely brilliance,
no-one is stopping you.
But if you are at all intrigued by this role...
...we need to ask you a final round of questions.
Tonight.
What's the character?
A terrorist.
No!
Go back.
Are you OK? I'm here to talk to you.
I'll be fine.
Dear God, Salim, I?m so sorry.
My name is Joanna.
I?m an observer for the International Aid Alliance,
- and it is our job to... - Where am I?
I?m not allowed to say.
Am I still in Greece?
Have they mistreated you at all since your arrival?
Are you getting enough fruit and. vegetables? Huh.
What is he, a puppy?
We don't have time.
This side is clean, yes?
We?ve got to get that drop-off location.
Look what I have...
Fire away then, Mart.
Ask me anything.
Let's begin with your family.
Israeli oranges are the best in the world.
Israeli?
Hm.
It's the only good thing they have...
...because they were grown on Palestinian soil.
If you want to get out of solitary,
you have to pacify your enemies without betraying your friends.
I have no friends.
No-one does.
Not at first.
But they will find out.
Do you have family you can write to?
I will only write to my lawyers.
Of course. But family plays better with the press.
What about your mother?
Jane Ashcroft.
- Dead? - Drunk.
Because of your father?
Because my father was a criminal, yes.
Did the school ask you to leave because of these problems?
Yeah.
It was heartless but we didn?t have money to pay the school fees.
So, after that fall from grace...
He went to prison,
- and we lost everything. - Mm.
I've been fending for myself since I was 15.
But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
- Hm. - So as soon as you could,
you rebelled to the stage and radical politics.
Oh, there were other ways of rebelling than radical politics.
Such as?
Sex, of course.
The essential basis to any revolt.
We?re not interested in all those failures, Charlie.
Was it your father who made you feel so angry?
- Can we take a break? - In a moment.
It must have upset you, his going to prison like that,
conning people out of their money.
It was humiliation.
The bailiffs coming in, ransacking the place.
Mum having to apply for benefits just to put food on the table.
That sort of thing didn?t happen to people like us.
So what did happen?
They took it all.
Everything.
My childhood.
- Our home. - Hm.
Our happiness.
And where were you when your father died?
Standing in a bus shelter...
...outside the prison, waiting for the gates to open.
Standing in the pissing rain.
The date?
15th of July, 1975.
Rain... In July?
You?ve never been to England, I take it?
Was your mother there with you, Charlie?
When he died?
Let's take that break now.
Who gives her the home truth?
It should come from me.
Thank you, Gadi.
Here you go, like you asked.
You'll have to write in English.
Otherwise they won't let your sister read it.
These people don't allow Arabic.
My lawyers?
They responded already, dear.
Last week.
Last week?
Your lawyers told you write to Fatmeh.
I-I don't remember.
Really? You don't remember me giving you an orange last week, either?
I remember that.
That?s good.
But I?m telling you, your lawyers told you to write to Fatmeh.
That?s your sister?s name, isn?t it?
Fatmeh?
You'll have to tell her you?re missing, at least.
She...
She already knows...
...if... if I have been here...
...a week.
0h?
I...
I call in every three days.
Contact every three days.
But never the same way twice. We need to tell Marty.
Now, I?m afraid we?ve found some rather worrying contradictions
in what you told us, Charlie.
Thought we weren't talking politics.
We?re not. We?re talking beliefs.
The reasoning behind every one of your political choices.
Look, I don't want the world wiped out in some dick-swinging contest
between some fascist
- demagogues we?ve never heard of. - Yes, yes, yes, yes.
We?ve heard all your rehearsed quotations.
Oh, piss off!
You say you?re the radical soul here, Charlie, but when are you
going to go out and do something about all this talk?
Have you not the courage
to steal,
to kill for these hearts
and minds enslaved by your capitalist overlords?
Is that what you want. Stealing and killing?
I want to know you stand by your promises.
Then stop twisting my words.
Are you recanting your stated position?
I don't have a stated position!
Oh. No commitment to activism, except that you are unaligned.
- Yes! - Peaceably unaligned, too.
You belong to the extreme centre.
Just like you?re a peace-loving Israeli.
Hm.
- That was nothing. - Yes.
Quite an illegal nothing
for someone who is anti-violence weapons training.
With dummy guns, look!
Sabotage techniques. Combat skills.
It was Al's scene.
I didn't really get... I thought it was just some cheap weekend away.
You can get ten years for this.
What? No, it wasn't like that. I was playing.
| go with the flow.
I take whatever role that is on offer, OK?
Playing.
Now.
Do you remember the last session devoted to the lamentable
expansion of Zionism?
The leading performer was a Palestinian revolutionary.
Do you not recall this speaker?
- I mean... - "The gun is my passport"
"to my homeland."
"We are no longer refugees. We are revolutionary people."
All right, I?m superficial.
I get it. But I didn?t do anything.
Didn't do anything?
No more lies, Charlie.
You say you went to this forum a couple of times.
- That correct? - It was a couple of times.
- Couple is two. - Oh, my God! Two or three.
What the hell?
"I went to visit my aunt in the country a couple of times"
"last year," that could be three.
- Four is possible. - Five, I guess. Five.
Oh, with five it?s half a dozen.
You want to revise "couple", Charlie?
I said a couple. I mean a couple.
And what do we make it out to be?
Six times. All documented.
Well, where does she get two from?
She?s lying.
Charlie deceived us.
That?s so disappointing.
- That sure is. - It's a phrase.
I-I was just acting...
- Like you've been acting here? - Yes!
- All your politics, all your claims. - Yes!
Like you've acted every day since the great fall of your
- criminal father! - Yes! Oh, my God!
Joseph, please tell me why any of this matters?
We know your father never went to prison, Charlie.
You never had the bailiffs in.
There was no rain on the 15th of July.
You were expelled from St Floras
after you were caught sleeping with a local boy.
Your parents forgave you,
as they always did everything.
Then one day your father died of a stroke in his home.
And you were heart-broken...
...because, in fact...
...you adored your bourgeois father.
We understand how you've spun a more dramatic fiction for your life.
One that plays in interviews and auditions,
at political forums with your so-called friends.
One that feels more like you,
than the ordinary, suburban reality.
And we love you for it.
Because we are just the same.
Let me go!
Hey, hey, hey!
You did great, kid.
You just got the part.
Every three days?
That?s what she said.
His last contact was two days ago.
We need to march double time.
- Message from Noah Gavron. - Mm-hmm.
"On no account will you admit to her that you are Israeli subjects."
"Insist that you pose as Americans."
I love it!
Cable back, "Yes."
"Repeat, no."
He?s happy since you came back.
It's not good for him.
He's lost his stomach. I can tell.
When the moment comes, Gadi will do what is necessary.
You haven't told him about the Mercedes?
Timing is everything, Shimon. Hmm?
I wonder how the weather is in Munich.
We fled their tanks on the West Bank...
"We fled their tanks, from the West Bank across Jordan."
"I asked my mother what was happening"
"and she said to me, to me, the youngest."
"What the Westerners did to the Jews"
"the Zionists now do to us."
I?m finished.
"When I was eight, I was driven from our land."
"The Gun and the Return, they are one for us."
How's the lip?
Well, I'll never play the trumpet again.
If I?m going to do this, I have to know what it is I?m deciding to do.
And in order to know, you first have to decide.
Well, that?s just marvellous.
This job, is it dangerous?
Incredibly.
This is the secret world, Charlie.
Are you in or out?
Who am I?
You.
And who are you?
You know me as... Michel.
And...
...are we in love?
Infatuated.
Promise me something.
If I go along with this, I want complete honesty.
So, for everything I do, you answer a question for me in return.
So we?re even.
OK?
Wear this today.
Your hair up.
There?s underwear in the bathroom.
Michel likes it when you wear bold colours.
Hm.
That's from our lovemaking last night.
How memorable.
"If the Israelis bomb our villages with fighter jets..."
Very good.
They?re still working on the drop-off location
but we need to make a start.
From now on everything I say and do is crucial.
We?re building a fiction, and our audience is everywhere,
all the time.
Our love affair has been secret.
Last night was our first together after weeks of waiting.
The whole time you were in Greece you were aching to join me.
That?s why you gave Alistair and the others the slip.
And what about Joseph?
The creepy businessman who tried to chat you up?
Mmm.
He was nothing.
The moment you got in this car in Athens,
you were with me, Michel.
Ah.
I took you to the Acropolis at night to celebrate our reunion.
We kissed in the ruins.
I?m romantic that way.
- Hmm... - Gestural.
Not terribly into that, I?m afraid.
You?ve never felt like this before.
Have I not? OK.
No!
| disapprove of women smoking.
And I disapprove of men who disapprove of women smoking. Mush.
It is your pleasure to obey me in these small matters.
- Jose, love... - Michel.
Mickey, love, I don't really see how this is going to work.
I mean, I?m still meant to be myself, or a credible version, right?
Exactly credible.
Hmm. Well, then.
Chauvinist then, this Michel?
Or some sort of wicked stereotype you lot've cooked up?
Well, he is, isn?t he?
There is nothing stereotypical about me, Charlie.
One day you'll meet my sister, Fatmeh.
Our inspiration.
Then you?ll understand.
Our Palestinian women have a dignity you can't even begin to imagine.
Ahh.
Palestinian.
| see.
Tricky.
I've checked the law firm.
Zurich, legitimate.
Just as well.
How close are you on Fatmeh?s reply?
Just the envelope to go.
I hope I got Fatmeh?s tone right.
We need to know where he was taking that car.
"No words can tell how much I admire the sacrifice you are making..."
"...but we must leave you now for the good of our cause."
"No-one will forget your name or the pride we all feel in you."
"You will become a blessed martyr,"
"like your brothers Fawaz and Abed."
"This I swear, as your sister."
"And so, I pray that you are given courage when your time comes."
"Your Fatmeh."
Salim.
Is Fatmeh going to help you?
I've tried everything. But it?s beyond me now.
They're sending an expert to talk to you.
All right.
- It's time. - I'm sorry.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
Let go. Let go.
It's good that you?re eating. You'll need your strength.
Argh!
Very good.
What did you say?
I said you did a very good job in there,
- Miss Bach. - Thank you.
This is also equally impressive.
Tell me the details.
So...
That?s Charlie?s timeline and here?s Michel's.
Hm.
We?ve tracked his movements using his receipts and matchbooks.
They coincide in London and Greece.
And while they are apart he writes to her to keep up the romance.
Miss Bach created some moving love ballads for me.
Oh, yes.
We need to put all this back in the apartment, Marty.
They?ll come looking soon.
How are we on the car?s destination?
Without that we?re on the diving board and the pool is empty.
He?s on the edge.
I think.
- Hm. - You going to get it out of him?
No, keep me in reserve.
Just in case.
So, who will be the expert?
Thank you.
Where did I meet you? Michel?
Although it was long before I was born,
| tell you often about Al Nakba.
Al Nakba?
The catastrophe of 1948.
The Israelis call it the War of Independence.
When your British betrayed us
and the Zionists drove us from our homeland...
No, I?m not talking about your great-great grandad.
I?m talking about you and me.
For 20 years, my father had faith in the Zionists to see reason.
And then came the massacres of ?67.
They shot him.
Made me stand next to him as they did.
We fled their tanks from the West Bank across Jordan.
And I asked my mother what was happening, and she said to me,
- to me the youngest... - Oh, God.
You?re him.
What the Westerners did to the Jews, the Zionists...
...now do to us.
When I was eight, I was driven from our land.
When I was ten, I joined the Ashbal with my brothers.
Excuse me?
Yes.
What's... What's an Ashbal? Sorry.
A children's militia.
If children can be bombed,
- they can also... - ...fight.
When i was 11.
I crouched in a home-made shelter,
while the Jordanians poured rockets into our camp.
The Gun and the Return...
...they are one for us.
That?s why you chose me then.
Because I was at that forum?
I fell in love with you instantly.
His eyes, they...
- They were... - Endless?
You look nothing like him.
It's not just what they see.
- It's what you believe. - Where is he now?
Here. With you.
Is this what you?re after then?
It's perfect.
Don't confuse drama with reality, Jose.
That?s very dangerous.
I'll remember that.
Coming from a professional.
Ironic, don't you think?
The first time we met it was me on stage and you in the audience.
You watched the matinee,
and stayed for the evening performance
and everyone saw you.
It was the longest day of my life.
Ha-ha!
But you were excellent though.
Far better than the theatre deserved...
No! No. Too late, love.
Sorry.
- Keep the tip. - Right.
Ef charisto.
Anna Witgen, the Swedish trash who delivered the bomb.
The one who killed the boy, Gabriel.
Where did you send her?
Does your big brother Khalil let you choose your women?
I know of no Khalil.
Thanks to your help we picked him up this week.
- My help? - He?s upstairs.
Shalom, Khalil.
You don't have Khalil.
He is alive.
For now.
When you've answered my question I might even let you share his cell.
Nurse him a bit.
You?re on the diving board, Salim.
And the pool is empty.
Come on, what have you got for me,
so that I can hold off my boss for another night?
That Mercedes, where were you going to drop it?
- Austria. - Where in Austria?
Salzburg train station.
Who was going to pick it up? And when?
I want to see Khalil.
Here, a gift.
Something I've already given you.
How can you give me something you've already given me?
Ah.
Heavier this time.
Not exactly my taste.
Good.
It's your actual response.
We have to build this fiction as solidly as possible.
Is it real?
Look beneath, Charlie.
There was something with it in the box.
You called the number.
My hotel.
But you refused to meet me anywhere but the theatre.
To return it, it?s too expensive.
Yes.
I?m too young to afford something like that.
Sorry.
So... you arrived at the theatre after hours.
We met in the bar.
When everything had closed, in a corner.
Behind you I could see the empty stage.
You took the box from your pocket...
...and you pushed it across the table to me.
I need you to have it.
My Joan.
I?m not a saint.
People get crushes on actors all the time.
- You're special. - Yeah, we're all special, love.
No.
just some of us.
I am, which is why I recognise it,
in you.
What are you doing?
- Falling in love with you. - Ha-ha.
Infinitely.
How much of this is you?
Is that your one question?
Mmm-mmh.
Are you really divorced?
She couldn't leave Jerusalem.
- I couldn't live in Israel. - Why?
Not exactly my taste.
Why?!
One question at a time.
So, does it play, Charlie?
Just about.
Enough for me to take you to dinner in my hotel room?
Cheeky bugger.
To the second night of our honeymoon.
You?re only supposed to toast if you?re drinking too.
Where?s all this leading to, Jose?
To bed.
Great. I love bed.
You?re shy, aren?t you?
Michel has slept with many women.
So?
So, we fuck.
Yeah. Why not?
Why not.
How is he?
Well, you tell me.
Enthusiastic.
But he lacks technique.
After we have sex, we sleep.
With this under the pillow.
Always.
I let you put a gun under there?
It thrills you.
Really?
Getting what you want puts you in a bad mood, doesn?t it?
Sleep.
With Al Nakba,
the British began a war,
for which they have not yet been held to account.
Al Nakba.
Just as they dispersed
the people of Palestine,
so shall we punish them
in their diaspora and declare
our agony to the world.
A telegram for room 24.
She?s not ready.
Then get her ready, Gadi.
Thank you.
Forgive me! Frau Schulmann was furious!
We are on our way, Paul. I can feel it in my bones.
I'll just need one more favour
from the Austrian authorities now.
It was no small task clearing the last shipment.
And you will reap no small rewards, I promise.
You have an eye for detail, Paul.
We both know it.
It was you who picked this excellent cafe, didn?t you?
Baumkuchen.
A German delicacy.
It is, I think, the best baumkuchen in all the country.
Really?
Hm.
A bit dry.
For the best you really must go to Fussen.
Details, Paul.
I have more news.
Of Anna Witgen.
The blonde bombshell.
I tracked her movements in the lead up to the explosion.
It turns out she rented rooms, one night in Maribor, Slovenia, and
then she spent some time in Salzburg before she came to Bad Godesberg.
- Salzburg, Austria. - Yes.
The birthplace of Mozart.
It can't be.
These people never use the same location twice.
Are you saying I've been given false information?
No, I have.
The last favour you asked me,
it was so difficult to help you...
I?m sorry.
The first night we spent together in London, we made love.
And I told you my real name.
It's not Michel.
Salim.
A great secret.
Why did you tell me that?
Because I trust you.
You will become my latest recruit.
And once you have proven yourself,
my network will reach out to you...
...and you will enter its ranks.
Enter its ranks?
I will stay close to you every step of the way.
Your make-up.
Oh! Michel loves it.
And he doesn?t mind me taking my time, either.
- Really? - Mm.
Well, we might as well have a little fun while we're at it.
Ha-ha!
So, what happens now?
First I set you a very important test.
Mm?
To pass, you must drive this car for the next 800 miles.
All the way across the Yugoslav border and into Austria.
Great.
I've never been to Austria before.
Alone.
You said you'd be close.
I will be, but not in the car.
And once you reach Salzburg train station, I'll find you again.
Hm.
But there?s one more thing.
Of course.
Turn right at the end.
From here you?ll be driving that car.
- What's the difference? - There?s just papers in there, love.
Nothing sinister.
The point is you've promised to do this for Michel here.
Now, if there?s any trouble,
you're on your own.
It's Russian semtex.
Divided into bricks...
- Gadi! - ...hidden in the interior panel.
Enough for a dozen bombs.
Is this real?
It's real.
What are you going to use it for?
To kill Jews throughout Europe.
And just as they dispersed the people of Palestine,
so shall we punish them in their diaspora
and declare our agony to the world.
I ask you to do this, Charlie.
For me.
For love.
For our great revolution.
To prove that you are as special as I believe.
This is your debut in the theatre of the real.
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