by Iddo Gefen
“It’s a real delicacy,” Grandpa insisted. “Here, I’ll take another bite just to prove it to you.” His face a bright red, Grandpa looked so miserable that the offer alone had made Dad burst into laughter, and Grandpa let out a sigh of relief once he realized he wouldn’t have to face the challenge again. They agreed that next time Dad would bring falafel from the Georgian, and all I could think about was how fragile the moment was.
“I have to admit you let us down a little,” Dad said, and Grandpa raised a baffled eyebrow. “I was sure you’d be hating every moment here. That we’d find you halfway to defecting to the Jordanian army.”
Grandpa shrugged and said he’d rather be serving in the special forces unit, but he decided to give his platoon another chance. “Most of the men here are deadbeats, but a few aren’t too bad.”
* * *
On our way back to the car we saw Shapiro and a few other elderlies from the platoon sitting on a bench. Grandpa introduced them to us with such pride, it was easy to forget that only a few days ago he had expressed a sincere willingness to smash their heads in with the butt of his rifle.
“You should know your grandpa is a real warrior,” one of them told me, pointing his walking stick at him. “God have mercy on the poor terrorist who comes up against him.”
“Come on, guys, that’s enough,” Grandpa said, but I could see on his face how much he wanted them to continue. To carry on with the same admiring tone that highlighted the difference between them, and made it clear he stood apart.
“I have a granddaughter here to show off too,” Shapiro mentioned proudly, and pointed at a girl in a turquoise sweater. She looked familiar, but her black sunglasses made it difficult to say from where.
“Avigail, meet Yuli.”
“We’ve already met once,” Avigail said.
“Really?” Shapiro asked.
I said “No” and she said “Yes” the exact same moment.
“Don’t try to deny it,” she said. That cheeky smile. It was the girl I had met at the Reception and Sorting Base.
“Okay, I don’t want to know,” Shapiro said and then turned to Grandpa. “If they end up getting married, you’re paying for the wedding hall.”
Grandpa smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll see about that. My grandson is one hell of a catch.” Then he added in a serious tone, “Did you know kiddo here fought in the Second Lebanon War?”
Their smiles turned into curious glances.
“Really?” Shapiro asked. “What brigade?”
“Golani,” I replied.
“An elite unit! Egoz,” Grandpa added.
Admiring gazes were showered upon me. One of them even started clapping. “So you were in the Battle of Bint Jbeil? With Roi Klein, rest in peace?” one of them asked.
“No.”
“So where were you?”
“Maroun al-Ras.”
“What did you do there?”
“We fought.”
“And kicked some Hezbollah ass?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why are you so blasé about it?” Avigail asked.
“Because it’s not such a big deal,” I replied.
“Or maybe because it fucked you up a little,” she said.
For a while, no one said a word.
“Say, how come I didn’t know all this?” Grandpa wondered, pleased with the attention I was getting from his platoonmates. “Guys, I propose my grandson share some battle stories. Yuli, tell us exactly what happened over there. We could use a few tips from a real pro.”
“We have to get going,” Dad cut him off, and started pushing me toward the car. “I still have to go over a few reports today.”
“Wait a minute, Yermi,” Grandpa said, trying to catch my hand. “Give us a few more minutes with the kid. They all want to hear what he has to say.”
“Some other time,” Dad announced in a tone that left little room for negotiation. “We have to go,” he said, and Grandpa had no choice but to accept it with the same nervous silence that hung between me and Dad the entire way home.
* * *
“It’s been a long time since you talked about what happened over there,” Dad said as he parked the car near our house. “I think you should reconsider therapy or something.” He was struggling to get the words out. “You should see someone,” he continued. “The things you went through in Lebanon. It isn’t normal.”
“I’m not the only one who went through it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s normal,” he replied. “You talk about it like you saw it in a movie, like it wasn’t even you there.”
“I get that you’re worried, but everything’s okay, really.”
“What are you talking about, Yuli?” he said with what sounded like anger that had been accumulating for some time. “You’ve been stuck for the past two years, Yuli. Two years. You can’t keep wasting your life.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re better than that.”
“Maybe I’m not,” I said.
It pained him to hear it like that, unfiltered. He was still sure it was just a phase. That soon I’d get my act together and enroll at Harvard or something, like I had promised him long ago.
We were both quiet, I’m not sure for how long.
“The pill you saw me take …,” he said hesitantly, lingering on every syllable. “Those aren’t for headaches. Since your mother left, with everything that’s been going on with the debts, with your grandpa … It hasn’t been easy. I mean, I’m trying to take care of it, but it’s not easy,” he said with a sigh. “It helps me. You understand? That’s why I said what I said. Maybe, just maybe, you should at least consider treatment.”
He waited a little until he realized I wasn’t going to respond.
“We’re too much alike,” he said, and got out of the car, leaving me alone with the cold pot.
18.
[email protected]
October 26, 2009, 04:32:58
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Come on, Yuli. Why don’t you pack a bag and fly to South America or Lapland or wherever you feel like going? To disprove everything I wrote in my last email. What’s stopping you, my child? I really don’t think you understand how much the thought troubles me. So much so that I’ve even made up a theory to try to explain it. I’m serious. It’s been on my mind for a long time. I call it the spots theory. It seems to me that every person has one spot in the world he’s connected to. It sounds obvious, I know. After all, everyone has a country and city they’re connected to. But I’m starting to think it isn’t the country that keeps us rooted. Nor our education, friends, or family. It’s something a lot more specific, much more precise. A spot in the world that pulls us in like a magnet. Your dad is a good example. His spot was the office. Fifteen years he worked his ass off there, and in that tiny spot, a square meter of an office, he was happier than I’ll ever be able to understand. Today I can’t believe how arrogant I had been, but back then I truly didn’t believe a person could be happy calculating formulas all day, and that even if he believed he was happy—he was just fooling himself. That’s why I wanted him to help me set up the travel agency. True, it was my dream and not his, but I wasn’t going to let the facts get in my way. What can I tell you, Yuli? I was a well-intentioned idiot. Your grandpa’s spot is obvious. His roof in Ramat Gan. I remember how he used to change whenever we went up there. I mean it. Watch him the next time he walks up the stairs to the roof. You’ll see how something in his soul is set free. How he walks differently, talks differently. As if the roof is his escape from reality. I can’t explain exactly what comes over him there, but with your grandpa you can really see what a good spot can do for a person.
Are you starting to understand what I’m talking about? I doubt it. Not only because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but also because neither of us has spots. I mean, I assume we do, but we just haven’t found them yet. I honestly can’t say where your spot is, but I’m sure it’s
in Israel. Maybe it’s right under your nose. Maybe even somewhere in our house. Because that would explain everything, you know? Why you’re so stuck in place. Remember you once told me about dark energy? You told me scientists are now saying 70 percent of the universe is comprised of something completely unknown. And that something affects our every movement in space, and we can’t even explain how. And I didn’t understand a single word you were saying, I never do when you talk about those things, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since. That there’s a hidden force affecting our lives. And the spots are exactly the same. Pushing and pulling us while we delude ourselves into believing we have complete control over our lives. But it’s all just make-believe. Even moving to India didn’t change anything. I’m still spending my days in an office, still stuck, just on a different continent.
You’re a little stuck too, huh? More like a lot stuck. I’ve heard from your father that the subject of university is not to be broached. And that your friends have all moved on with their lives and that you’ve fallen out of touch with them (don’t be mad, he didn’t want to rat you out, he only told me after I yelled at him that you were my son too). I’m trying not to ask myself how much of this is my fault. Clearly I’m guilty, it’s just a question of how much. I’m sure the war is also to blame. Yes, the war. The one we haven’t talked about. You know I’ve been bracing myself for this question for two years now? How could I not come? How could I not board the first flight to Israel the moment it all began? For two years I’ve been rehearsing the lousy answer I’d give you. But you never asked. I remember when we talked on the phone after you got back, and you said there’s nothing to tell, and I kept insisting, but you said there was no point because I could never understand Lebanon, and I felt as if we were back in your high school days, after your dad and I divorced. When you would come over to my place once every two weeks and not say so much as a word. And I so wanted you to talk to me. That’s why I was thrilled when your teacher called to tell me you wrote that civics paper about the Spartan approach. Brilliant as always, but also a little troubling; she suggested we talk to you, make sure everything was okay, and I instantly knew that phone call was a chance to peek into your world. I knew you wouldn’t show me the paper if I came out and asked for it, so I went into your room and searched every drawer until I found it. You’re probably still angry about that, but try to understand me. You wouldn’t talk to me back then. You never really talked to me. Neither before the war, nor after. You wouldn’t say anything other than “it was fine,” as if it was just another boring day at school. How I yearned to get another phone call like the one I got from your teacher, for someone to give me a clue into what was going on in that head of yours. But no commander called. And whenever we spoke I kept begging you to share your feelings with me, to share anything. And I told you it was true I might not be so great at it, but I was still your mother. Oh, my Yuli, remember what you said? I’m sure you don’t. It came out so naturally I don’t think you even noticed. But I’ll never forget it. Believe me.
“I guess not every woman is meant to be a mother.” That’s what you said. With some kind of excruciatingly sober rationality you must have gotten from your dad, not from me. My heart went up in flames, Yuli. Burned to dust. But I didn’t say a word. And we’ve never discussed those words. As if they never even left your mouth. But they continued to gnaw at me. I think it was after that conversation that you started calling me Alma. I mean, every now and then you would do that, that’s why I didn’t notice at first, but with time I realized the word Mom had completely disappeared from your vocabulary. To this day I don’t know if it was a conscious decision you made or something that just happened on its own. It’s a paradox, you know? Because if we were a little closer I’d work up the nerve to ask you about it, but if we were a little closer, you’d probably still be calling me Mom. Right?
So much is missing between us, Yuli.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
19.
AT 6:00 A.M. the following day, I got a phone call from Shapiro. He said Grandpa had been admitted to HaEmek hospital, that he couldn’t talk about it over the phone and would explain everything once I got there. I leaped out of bed, left a note for Dad, and sped up north. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. How could he be in the hospital? Just yesterday he had looked like a Chuck Norris action figure. Hospitalization? He must be unconscious. Grandpa would never willingly set foot in a hospital. Even when Grandma Miriam was diagnosed with pneumonia and was admitted for three days, he refused to visit. He claimed they made those places so miserable on purpose, so that people would start thinking death wasn’t the worst option, and he had no intention of falling for that ruse.
Dad called as I drove past Hadera. “I didn’t understand your note. Where are you going this early?”
“Grandpa is in the hospital,” I replied.
“Your grandpa? Who managed to pull that off?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“I see,” he said, and fell silent.
“I hope it’s nothing serious,” I said.
“Yes. Yes. So do I. Okay, keep me updated.”
“I will.”
“Good, so we’ll talk later. I have to go over a case file.”
“What case file?” I asked.
“Since when do you care?” Dad scoffed.
“I don’t,” I replied. “But I have a long drive ahead of me.”
He said it was an interesting case. Some guy who had taken out a three-million-dollar life insurance policy and killed himself less than an hour after signing the paperwork.
“What you call a man with a plan …”
“Yes,” Dad said, “only his family won’t be getting the money. There are laws against such cases, so people won’t start jumping off roofs whenever they’re a few shekels short. That’s why I always say how important it is to read the …”
“Fine print,” I completed his sentence.
“Speaking of fine print, you have to sort out your bank account forms. How many times do I have to tell you that it’s money going down the drain?”
“I already did,” I replied.
“What? When?”
“Last night, after we got back from the Valley.”
“How? Online?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, good.”
I was waiting for more, but he said he had to hang up.
* * *
They had put him in the medical corps ward, room 213. He was lying in the bed closest to the window, his head slouching to the left and his right hand slumped across the bedrail. His eyes were closed. Shapiro sat to his left, his leg in bandages; he tried scratching it with the butt of his rifle, without much success. I put my hand on Grandpa’s shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. He didn’t wake up.
“Don’t worry, your old man’s fine,” Shapiro immediately said. “A little neck pain from the fall, probably nothing serious. Trust me, they only brought him in because he’s an old fart.”
“How the hell did you guys end up in the hospital?”
“Operational activity,” Shapiro announced.
“Please, who are you kidding?” I said in a huff. “What’s this operational activity nonsense? I saw you guys yesterday, no one said a word about operational activity.”
“Of course no one said a word,” Shapiro said, waving dismissively. “We’re talking covert mission. Your grandpa explicitly forbade us from disclosing any details.”
“My grandfather forbade you? What the fuck? You guys are commandos now? Who exactly would send you on a covert mission?”
“No one. Your grandfather decided we should send ourselves.”
Oh god, what had he talked them into? I considered Grandpa again, lying there in his field pants and an undershirt reeking of sweat, patches of white stubble on his cheek.
“He wouldn’t put on the hospital gown,” Shapiro
said. I straightened the pillow behind Grandpa’s neck, then sat back down on my chair and looked at Shapiro. “Okay, tell me what mess he has gotten the two of you into, and don’t give me any bullshit about how you’re not allowed to talk about it.”
He looked at Grandpa, closed his eyes, opened them and turned his gaze back to me. “He’d been planning it for the past two weeks,” he said, sighing. Grandpa had pulled him aside in the dining hall for a discreet conversation, saying he couldn’t understand why they weren’t sending them on real missions, arguing that even scarecrows could secure a sleepy settlement in the Valley. “I tried calming him down, but he announced it was time we thought outside the box, just like Ariel Sharon when he established Unit 101. To show the top dogs what we’re worth.”
They set off on their mission last night. Yossi Gourevitch and Alex Lieberman, the platoon driver, showed up too. They took the quartermaster’s Renault Kangoo and patrolled the area, wanting to show everyone they shouldn’t be messed with.
“Within three hours we had already canvassed the area twice, like champs,” Shapiro said. “Even your grandpa was proud of us. But the moment we started heading back, he noticed someone running behind us.”
“What? Who?”
“A very suspicious man!” Shapiro exclaimed. “Your grandpa tried to get out of the car, but he was so nervous his hands shook, so it took him a few moments to get out. He finally managed, but the thing is, Gourevitch, that useless bugger, also fumbled. Hit my knee with his weapon and tripped right over your grandpa.”
He said that by the time the three of them had gotten back on their feet, the man was already two hundred meters ahead of them, and kept running. “Your grandpa was so upset he tossed his weapon to the ground and started cursing us. Said some very unpleasant things. I can’t blame Gourevitch.”
“Blame him for what?”
“Shooting.”
“Shooting?” I asked, thinking I must have misheard.
“Yes, yes, fired his weapon, shot the guy. Seconds later we heard the guy screaming, and saw him collapse to the ground.”