To America and Back

by Mordechai Landsberg

About seven weeks after his arrival to Israel, Nahumik registered his address in the Ministry of Interior. Some days later he received a typed note: “Command for Reporting to the Military Authorities, and passing Fitness and Capability Exams in the Mobilization Office”. He saw such a styling, with many details – also on the Announcements Pillars in the streets. It had mainly required, that every youth approaching the age of eighteen should come there and ‘stand up to be mobilized’.

  Humik was happy that it was like a seasonal phenomenon, and he would be welcomed there with many others.

  In a nice but cold automn morning, he arrived in the Mobilization Office. Immediately he was met by two doctors, who told him to undress his upper wearing. They checked his tongue, chest, belly, and even were taking a look at his testicles. Then they told him to jump twenty times on his standing place, and measured his heart’s pounding and blood pressure. They soon asked him to breath very deeply, then stop, and repeat it thrice. It seemd like they have finished his check up, as they had left him in the room and went outside for their ‘tea break’. Humik dressed himself and was waiting, but had not noticed some young medic, or an additional doc- who was still sitting in the corner. Suddenly somebody activated an instrument behind Humik’s back, and he felt he had been in hell: A loud sirene noise crushed his ears and nerves, and he wanted to fall down and catch some shelter, as he had done in his childhood, while his neighborhood had been shelled by twenty Pounds artilery. And that last noise was much more terrible.

  “Excuse me,” he heard a voice, that came from behind his back. Only then he saw the young medic, and understood he had been there before.

  “The noise came out from this Panic Checking Ruler,” the guy explained, pointing on a metal straight ruler, that had fallen on the floor, “I am sorry for disturbing you. It was by mistake. This wonder ruler is used by me in my second job, in an Airforce camp. It has remained in my bag since yesterday. As I wanted to pull out a sandwich with a hard egg from my bag, I have just pulled out this Ruller, too. It unfortunately struck the floor, there. The result was a terrible yelling sirene, or something more terrifying.”

  “Is this aimed for measuring something?” asked smart Humik.

  “Of course. But first let me ask you: Have you submitted a request for volunteering to the Air force?”

  “No, sir. I’ll volunteer to some different armed force.”

  Humik was cautious not to tell him to what he was really aspiring. He was afraid that the army has its own kind of tests, to check if the volunteers are too chatty or not cautious. So – talking too much might hurt his prospects for becoming a Parachutist.

  “O’key,” said the man, who was young, about twenty five or eight, “you cannot be a pilot, for sure!”

  “Had the metal ruler discovered that from my nervous reaction?”

  The medic nodded, then approached the docs’ desk and looked into a file, headed: “Nahum Kaplansky.”

  “I remember you as a good boy,” said the medic, “you had been a pupil in my brother’s class. His name is: Dovik. Do you remember him? I haven’t seen you several years. Have you moved to another town?

  “I was abroad,” said Humik, “in America. For more than six years. Had not your brother told you?”

  “Maybe I don’t remember,” said the medic, “But now I can tell you, that you can serve in any fighting unit,” He said and closed the file in a hurry, “The truth is, that I’m not said to tell you anything.”

  “I understand,” said Humik, and the medic retreated. It was at the same moment that the two docs returned, after having finished drinking their tea and eating their cakes.

  “Why are you here?” asked one of them, turning to Humik.

  “You haven’t told me what to do next “ he said.

  “Go home,” the doc said.

  “No, Wait for me in the corridor.” said Dovik’s brother, the medic, “I would like to tell you something about Dovik.”

  Humik approached fellows who were seated on a long bench and just chatting. He understood they had met here by chance, but they wanted to argue or tell their problems to each other. So they would be strengthened in their wish to be mobilized or – on the cotrary, get a dismissal.

  “You have to understand,” said one of them, wishing to appear as ‘know all’, “with his health clause – he can serve as a squad store keeper and the like. Yes, even in a fighting unit. But to be a real fighter, fight face to face with the enemy – you have to be with a powerful physical capability. A stong heart, best lungs and so on. You know how many kilometers a fighter must run per day? twenty; and additional twenty- he would walk, day and night. He must know how to fire a mortar bomb, how to move a tank, how to carry a machine gun, not a light Uzi sub macine gun – that is a laughter. You have no way of retreat, that’s what they are telling you, ‘our back is turned to the sea’. Yes, our border is twelve kilometers from the Mediteranean, would you believe that?”

  “You are right,” said Humik, “I know that we have only the front, no back to withdraw or maneuvre.”

  “Why are you talking about retreat or maneuvre?” asked a thin chap, “Are you longing to a war? I am from a kibbuts, and I am – like my leaders- for a just peace with the Arabs. We have to listen to what Soviet Russia says about this subject.”

  “War is more likely than peace,” said another one, “I can’t disregard the journalists writing about that. The situation here is serious; the one who won’t understand that – is deluding himself. Like you”- he pointed on the guy, who had talked before, “You are from Hashomer Hatsair Kibbuts, aren’t you? You think you’ll bring the peace piegon by smearing salt on its wings.”

  “I see you are a great strategist.” Humik told him.

  “Don’t think I always agree with what our government and army commanders are doing. Sometimes I see, that things are done wrongly, improperly. For example: closing whole Arab locations. Every time the Arabs want to travel in a bus from Nazareth to Haifa, for example – they have to register, and beg a special License from a military Ruler, so they call it.”

  “Generally – you seem to be a patriot,” said Humik.

  “It’s not a wonder,” he said, “I have twenty friends in the army, in various units. We have been raised from childhood in a kibbuts. When my friends come to vacatrion- they explain me exactly – what happens around us. They know it from a first source. Due to them I‘m madly in love with this small country.”

  “I have the same solidarity problem.” said another.

  “I don’t believe in that,” told them Humik, “I think it’s all a matter of your personal character, or ‘born with’ case. For example: I have a friend, who was raised like me, same street same town. His mother was in the holocaust. He had come a few months ago to America – and would refuse to return to Israel, to be mobilized. It’s true, that I have in my mind more letters and books and abstract ideas than him. But has that to do with loving your native land? A sentiment is a complicated matter, I say.”

  “So, you have really come from America- to join the army?”

  Humik nodded and twelve eyes (there were fourteen around) were gazing at him in wonder, and even in worship.

  “Maybe one day you’ll regret it. Or you won’t have that chance.”

  “Oh, God will save us all,” said a guy wearing a cap, who was sitting at the edge of the bench, “With God’s help, nothing bad will happen.”

  “I am sure, that from now on I am chained to this ground,” said Humik, “If you ask me why, I’ll explain it as a psychological sickness, not yet defind so by Psychiatrists. I am a coward hero. Having an aspiration to be like my father, who’d got killed as a soldier in the second world war.”

  The listeners were silent for some seconds.

  “Yes, it’s natural that your heart is repeatedly pounding like a drum,” said another guy, “and you that want to continue listening to its monotonous tempo. My brother was killed in an operation a year ago, and the army refuses to mobilize me, for t
he time being. My parents told me: Do what you want. So, I’ll join the infantry, I hope so.”

  “You tell yourself a sentence, like an Indian Mantra: Never desert a land, that your loved ones had been killed for it.”

  “It’s not so reasonable to say that,” said the antagonistic Kibbuts’ guy, “because the Jews did not have, also in the far past – fixed and recognized border lines in this historical country. I have passed first year of history studies in the university, and I know. But the army has not allowed me to continue studying. They need me in a rotten office. My health clause is problematic.” Humik discerned that the medic with the ‘Panic Checking Ruler’ was approaching him.

  “I have an idea,” he said to Humik, “I will tell my brother Dovik, that you, Nahumik- would like to join the Parachuters. He will be soon mobilized to the coming NAHAL (Hebrew word for Fighters Pioneers Youths) units. They are a group of fifteen friends or so, who will pass together the parachuting course. It will be after they’ll be a year in a ‘Seed settlemnet’ near the border.”

  “Are there other ex-pupils from our old school?” asked Humik.

  “Of course, most of them. And you’ll recognize them.”

  “It will be very interesting for me.” said Humik, “I’ll happily

  listen to what they would tell, and maybe join them. I have no society here yet. I know here only one girl, who had been in New York. She is not my personal girl friend.”

  “O’key,” said the ruler owner, “how could Dovik contact you?”

  “Here is my address in Tel Aviv. He can write to me. And here I write a phone Number of a Café. Its owner would tell me.”

  Humik wrote a note with his details, and departed from his friend’s brother.

  Two weeks afterward Humik found himself among the ex-pupils of his class from elementary school. With them there were other guys and teenager girls that he had known from other schools, or had not known in the past at all. They were meeting in Dovik’s parents’ house, and the small living room was narrow to contain them. So, a few were seated in the corridor and listening to a speech of ‘the scouts movement’s district leader’.

  He was wearing a blue shirt with a green broad narrow kerchief arounf his neck. His eliptic narrow glasses were flashing every time he was changing his gaze to another sub-group seated before him. He was holding his speech while standing:

  “So, you will be a group tightly connected with our movement, to settle in a deserted place, called : Nehusha. I still can’t give you many details about it, but it’s in the south of Jerusalem. You will strengthen the areas near a place called Beit Guvrin, Arab ex-territory named: Bet Jubrin. You will be creating there what we call: ‘a Seed’. It is a new place of young people devoted to each other. Like a seed of wheat – it will insert roots into the ground, send green leaves to the air around… O’key? We – together with the army, want to establish this village as a semi-military position: It will take control of the area between Lakhish district and Jerusalem. Today the border there is breached every night: Infiltraitors come in, Jordaian Arabs or Palestinians.”

  “For how long will be our service there?” asked Dovik.

  “First you’ll pass a regular recruiting period in the Army, of four months; then you’ll climb these hills of Nehusha, and stay there for a year or more. You may be called for a second service period after that. But whoever will decide, and I hope that all of you – will continue building this Kibbuts and be its settlers for many years to come, after their army service.”

  Nahumik- so was his name known to most of his friends there, was happy to hear all these details. They would meet his expectation, as after one year of settlemnet – most of the guys will volunteer to get into a parachutists special group. It will be comprised by the ‘Seeds’ members, so he had been told. Yes, there is a difference between him and most of the other guys: He knows for sure, that he wouldn’t stay with them after his army service. He won’t become a farmer like his father had been. He is ready to work there for a year, but not more. However, Humik began to like his new friends. They are together a nice group that will establish a small ‘community-seed’. ‘The question is – what will happen from now on?’ said Humik to himself, ‘Maybe I myself will change my mind, after observing that the place would become a real paradise… So, I will stay there for long… I have yet to pass a restless journey till I arrive to that bridge of ending my army service. It will last- together with the Seed’s service – two and half years.’

  ‘My parents’, he told himself on his way back to his room, ‘would be frightened to hear what I have decided: Become a parachutist, and almost at the same time go back to live as a farmer. They had left everything behind, and here I am- consciously and voluntarily throwing myself back to an ancient, primitive way of life. “Have you ever seen such a silly-stupid young man?” would my Mom ask her husband, irritatingly…

  It is a gentle aim for one’s life: to settle on a deserted land, like Nature had created it; that means: to change the landscape, or the shape of the ‘deserted for thousands of years’ land, by sowing some vegetables and planting olive or fig trees over there. Is it idealistic or crazy or both?’

  ‘No’, Humik suddenly said to himself, and reshuffled his thoughts. ‘I know for sure I won’t be living with this group after my army service. And many of them won’t be attached forever to that place Nehusha, too. It’s a tough effort, and the guys have parents and brothers and other friends, that would entreat them not to remain, but come back home or learn something in university. In fact, their situation would be like mine. That’s a way in which human beings are wandering…’

  A Student of what profession I would like to be? In America I thought about management and promotion of actors and arts in general. I cannot now tell now exactly I expect from myself to study further. Maybe I’ll take modern literature and Journalism, or social work, if they have it here, in Jerusalem University. I am thinking too much forward…”

  A day after that, Humik received a letter from his parents. ‘They had just wanted’, he told himself while reading it, ‘to purify their conscience. To think that they had fulfilled their parental duty, and told me to do this or that. If I won’t do what they ask – they won’t be responsible about the results. Well, I agree that only I myself am responsible for my success and failure.”

  “You will find out in the future,” wrote Solomon, “Humik dear, that it’s very recommended to live without being brave. Had my son Elkano understood it- he would not have been in the grave, with his best comrades… The most important thing in life is – realizing your selfish wish to survive. But don’t declare it in public. Teachers, educators, commanders, politicians, Rabbis, and all others ‘Denying the Human Truth’, just would dislike to hear that,( though to their family members they would sometime advice to restrain, not rush out to be in the first line of fighters). That egotisic truth does not meet their hypocrite sayings and their self egotism, that they have developed during the years. And by whose help?- By cursed patriotism, which the army is its best realiser, if I may call it so.. .You certainly know that:

  The army is a cunning type of creature, a sonofabitch – that is being permanently created by the kinds of personalities that I’ve mentioned. They are all trying to ‘develop and enrich’ the ground of eighteen years old youths, who are called to serve them – by a cruel, barbaric law. In these guys- the hormonal activity, their ‘heart and mind and testicle’ activity, called ‘emotion’- is in its climax. Therefore they have an unending energy mixed with with an enormous feeling of love to everything- except their parents, maybe. Every minute they aspire and desire to unite with girls, friends, commanders, nativeland, nation, God. They reach a crazy propensity and preparedness to sacrifice themselves for all the mentioned words, which they consider as ‘values’. Had I believed in God, I would have begged him: ‘As a first step to repair your bloody world, please please stop this horrible phenomemon.’ Have you understood what I mean, Humik?”

&nb
sp; Then Humik meditated about the terrible situation, in which he is chained to a belief about the vital necessity of his homeland to his soul. It had grown in him since being raised in a small town; it had developed in the first ten years of his wandering life. Yes, sometimes he thinks about himself as still a boy, innocently trying to idealize the simple concept of Goodness. ‘Of course I know that most of it is impossible to be realized.’ he says to himself, ‘But if so – am I ready to be caught by moments, in which I can run out from that – like I have done by the refreshing adventure with Raphaella? Now it seems to me – like I had intentionally escaped from my innocence, and closed myself in a bubble. My alter-ego told me that death is waiting me soon, while I had known I should go forth to Israel.’

  CHAPTER 33