To America and Back
Page 14
Elkano was mobilized a few days afterward. His brigade was called ‘Alexandrony’; who knows why? Maybe the soldiers will have to capture many lands, like Alexander Macedonian.
One day Elkano came to Ramona’s house, dressed in Khaki uniform and a woolen wintry ‘Stocking Hat’ on his head.
“We have all kinds of uniforms there”- he told Ramona, ”Our men have purchased that secretly from armies of many nations”.
He was sitting in the kitchen with the mother and her son, drinking coffee and eating apples’ pie. The boy had many questions to ask: What exactly the soldiers were doing in the border? Is there no fence in the frontline? – the Palestinian Arabs are still allowed to travel to Tel Aviv. Why are you only patrolling and keeping the area from armed intruders? And- “what will happen with your horse – when you will be moving far from here? You’ve not … ”
“You are right,” answered Elkano, “I will soon leave the eastern front, and maybe go far, to the Jerusalem-Way front. But the horse will remain in my Pa’s stable. He’ll take care of it !”
“But can’t you take it with you? We see things like that in the movies,” said the boy.
“No. first of all- my Pa would use it from time to time.” said Elkano. Then he asked about the chicken and the eggs and the new movies, that Ramona has seen last month.
“Before you leave,” said the boy, ”I have a request regarding the horse. Can you tell your pa to permit me to ride once a week?”
“Of course,” said Elkano, “why not?”
“I’ll ride only around the big Brown House,“ said Nahumik. “Your papa should not think that I’ll gallop it crazily.”
“Come with me straight forward to him,” said Elkano. “You should promise him to come always after your school hours, at noon – when my pa closes his photo shop. So, he can watch you.”
After Elkano had left with the boy, Ramona became frustrated. My spirit is under the floor- she mumbled bitterly to herself, thinking why a nervous tremble is passing through her limbs. ‘It’s not our last meeting,’ she said loudly, as to strengthen her confidence, that she’ll soon see Elkano again.
The guy has asked such a few questions about her – and even about Nahumik. As if he was not interested any more in their regular life. Yes, he asked if the Nahumik and his classmates had written a composition about the war; but he didn’t ask what the Rabbi had said about the current events… Elkano told her recently, that he hated the idea of Holy-books’ studies. He believed in what the eyes saw and what you could touch, in the material aspect of the universe. ‘Within a few years,’ he said, ‘science will know evetything, without God’s interference in the cosmos, and in mankind’s life. And we should take what pure nature has rendered to us. Enjoy the beauty and the plenty of nice, tasty things; and aspire to fulfill what our senses lead us to.’ Elkano did not think about himself as a ‘peculiar pleasures’ chaser’. In one thing he was sure, even if there was a God- he would not create his creatures only for the purpose to be worshipped and prayed day and night, with all those religious ceremonies, that never end.
“I have quite a quite different belief,” she had told Elkano in one of their first rare meetings. “I seem just to believe in a Sublime Force, which is not simply mere nature… Though maybe I would have liked to feel as a free bee, flying-rolling around from flower to flower, like you will be one day… Or – If I could be like Brett, the Antagonist in Hemigway’s book, that I’ve recently read. It’s called: ‘Fiesta – the sun also rises.’ Beautiful Brett is courted by three men at least. They’re having artistic souls; and her sex appeal plays with their attraction to her beauty and sexuality; maltreating them to the end: She falls in a sensational-sexual love with a bullfighter, disconnects from the artists-fans company, and lying with the Torrero in a hotel in Madric– making all of them angry, which she doesn’t mind. Oh, sometime I think I can envy her… She’s in my age, or a little older. But she has no kid, that I do…”
On their way to Kaplansky’s house, Elkano revealed to Nahumik that next morning he’d go with the army to a dangerous activity.
The boy became afraid, but didn’t show it. They entered Kaplansky’s apartment. The Photographer was busy in reading the evening newspaper. Elkano asked him to permit the boy to ride the horse, when he would be out – and his father spoke loudly, so that Nahumik would also hear: “No problem. I hope the boy will be a horse rider like General Pilsudsky, whom I saw once in Poland. Then I’ll take a nice photograph of him.”
Two days after that Elkano returned to his father’s home, telling him he was among the soldiers who had captured two Arab villages in front of their town.
He was wearing the woolen khaki hat and his face was smeared with mud. Bruises were covering his forehead and arms. He told Kaplansky, that he and his collegues had given a good fight to the enemy, using hand-grenades, Sten small arms, and Elkano was first time using a German ‘M.G.Schpandau’. This means a heavy machine gun, with a firing tempo of hundreds bullets per minute. Ah, what a bliss you feel – holding that weapon tight to your arm, and the backpush hits your shoulder while you are shooting…Two soldiers were killed in that attack. ‘One of them was hit by a bullet in his lung. We couldn’t pull it out of him’…
Afterward Elkano took a shower, and just went to the stable and pulled the horse out of it. He put the saddle on its back, mounted it and began galloping outside the town, wishing to forget everything. He told himself he should not arrive in Ramona’s house. He refuses to let her meet him and then get into stress and sadness. It wouldn’t be fair.
Elkano told his father to tell Ramona- if she asks about him- that he had come home for only a few seconds, just to say hello; and that a jeep was waiting for him to get back to the frontline.
CHAPTER 15