Jerusalem Beach

by Iddo Gefen

  “You didn’t just say that, Shapiro.”

  “It’s the truth, I’m afraid. We shot the guy.”

  I got up and checked that no one was standing in the hallway. Then I shut the door and sat back down in front of Shapiro, who was trying to avoid eye contact.

  “Now tell me exactly, and I mean exactly, what you did from that moment on,” I said. He told me that they walked over to the injured man and found him lying on the ground. “The guy was squirming in pain like you wouldn’t believe,” Shapiro said. “His knee was covered in blood. I told your grandpa this whole thing has gone too far. That it was supposed to be a nice evening, a morale-boosting activity, not a murder attempt, to which he said he always knew that a leftist who voted Mapam his entire life could not be trusted. Believe me, we could have kept arguing for hours, but Gourevitch started shouting that the guy had passed out. To tell you the truth, Yuli, I think that if it had been up to your grandpa, the poor guy would be buried under a basil bush right now, but Alex and I insisted on calling an ambulance. Eventually the medics also evacuated all three of us—me on account of my bruised knee, your grandpa because of the pain in his neck, and Gourevitch due to a panic attack. I’m not exactly sure what they gave your grandpa, but he’s been sleeping like a baby for the past three hours.”

  “Did you report it to anyone?”

  “No,” Shapiro said, “but an hour after it happened I got a phone call from Waxman that he was on his way over, and one of the nurses told me the guy we shot was lying on the third floor, being interrogated by soldiers.”

  I was so angry I grabbed Shapiro’s chair, startling him. “No, really, you guys are truly a bunch of dimwits, Shapiro. Morons.”

  Shapiro remained silent.

  “You realize the four of you shot some poor Thai worker?”

  “I don’t think he looked very Asian …”

  “No, you really don’t get it, huh? Wake up, Shapiro. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison. You understand? Not military prison, real prison. Honestly, Shapiro, I don’t know what to tell you. Shooting a man like that? It’s not something the army can just sweep under the rug.” I got up and stood next to Grandpa. “Come on, you can stop pretending, I’ve had enough,” I yelled at him. “Wake up. Come on already, wake up!” I gave him a good shake, but he didn’t wake up.

  “Let him sleep, Yuli, it’s not nice what you’re doing to him.”

  “Such an idiot,” I hissed at him.

  I sat back down in my chair, put my hands on my head, and stared at the floor.

  We sat in front of each other in silence. Grandpa coughed every now and then, but with his remarkable stubbornness refused to wake up. I can’t say how long we sat there like that before I heard the door open.

  An officer with lieutenant’s stripes stepped into the room; he looked more or less my age. A tall, balding guy with a buzz cut and a red beret, standing straight with his shoulders back like only officers do. “The Geriatric Platoon” was written on the strap of his M16, which was mounted with a scope and a laser sight—a ridiculously kitted-out weapon, especially for someone commanding elderly soldiers in the Jordan Valley. He considered me in silence, then shot his soldier an indifferent look.

  “I’m sorry, Waxman,” Shapiro said. “I don’t know what came over us, I really—”

  “Don’t worry,” he cut him off. “You’ll have enough time to think about it. Can you stand? Walk?”

  “Not so much.”

  Waxman took out his MIRS two-way radio, pressed a button, and grunted something unintelligible. “Someone will help you downstairs in a minute. There’s a driver waiting to take you to your interrogation.”

  Shapiro lowered his gaze. “Will you be there?”

  “No. The commander of the regional brigade will be, maybe the general of the central command too.”

  A few moments later, a soldier walked in with a wheelchair. He helped Shapiro up and eased him into it. “After the interrogation they’ll bring you back for hip replacement surgery,” Waxman said.

  “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Shapiro replied, shaking his head in frustration as the soldier wheeled him out of the room.

  Waxman sat down and pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket. “You’re Shapiro’s grandkid?” he asked, offering me a cigarette.

  I turned it down and pointed at Grandpa.

  “His,” I said.

  Waxman opened the window, took out a lighter and lit up. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

  “Not personally, but this is a hospital. Maybe not a good idea.”

  “You’re right, bro. When you’re right, you’re right.” He took two long drags, stubbed out the cigarette against the windowpane, and threw it away. “My girlfriend’s dying for me to quit anyway.” He unbuckled his belt and yanked his shirt out of his pants. Then he looked at Grandpa. “Has a few loose screws, your grandpa, huh? Did Shapiro tell you about the mission your grandpa planned?”

  “Nope,” I said. “He just complained about his hip.”

  “Listen, your grandpa planned something straight out of an action movie. I’m talking Hollywood.”

  “All on his own?” I asked, trying to sound surprised.

  “Kept a tight lip,” Waxman replied. “Did it all right under my nose.”

  “So, does this mean he’s going to get another Shabbat detention?”

  Waxman laughed. “He should be getting a lot more than Shabbat detention, believe me,” he said. “But as it stands, it looks like the four of them might be getting a commendation for it.”

  “What? What are you talking about? Shapiro told me that …” I fell silent.

  Waxman leaned in. “What did Shapiro tell you?”

  I remained silent.

  “I know Gourevitch tried to shoot the guy. Don’t worry, I know everything.”

  “What do you mean, ‘tried’?” I replied. I couldn’t help myself.

  “I mean just that, he tried to shoot the guy.”

  “So how did the guy end up with a bullet in his leg if Gourevitch only tried?”

  “What bullet in his leg, bro?” Waxman said. He looked at Grandpa, then turned his gaze back to me. “Wait, you want to tell me they actually think Gourevitch got him?” he said, and burst into roaring laughter. “Oh man, that’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. You think Gourevitch could hit a mark from two hundred meters away? At the shooting range that old geezer couldn’t hit a target from five centimeters away. The guy stumbled on a rock or something. You think I’d be sitting here smoking a cigarette if they had actually shot that drug mule?”

  “Drug mule?”

  “Wow, you’re really out of it, huh? You haven’t heard the news today? The medics found four kilos of cocaine on the dude. In his underwear. Some real fucked-up shit.”

  He went on about all these senior officers who might attend the commendation ceremony, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking at Grandpa, trying to imagine Grandma Miriam sitting there next to him. If it were up to her, she would probably have thrown his ass in jail just for causing her such heartache.

  20.

  WAXMAN AND I waited there for another hour to see if Grandpa would wake up, and he wouldn’t stop rambling the whole time, apparently thrilled by the chance to talk to someone under the age of seventy-five. He told me he had originally served in the paratroopers, said he was the only officer in the IDF willing to take on the role, which was only because he had gotten himself entangled in a blunder in his previous company. Something about a soldier who went missing, probably killed himself. He had to choose between a dishonorable discharge and this shitty role. He said that at the end of the day, being a commander was the same everywhere, the only difference was that the exemptions in the Geriatric Platoon were legit. That there wasn’t a single day when he didn’t learn of a new disease, and that at this rate he’d end up a specialist in Tel HaShomer Hospital. I asked him how long he planned to stay in the platoon and he said that the moment he fini
shed a year in his current role, he’d see if they’d give him back his old post in the paratroopers. If not, he’d call it quits. “In which case, next year it’s law school at Tel Aviv University for me.”

  “You a student, bro?”

  “No,” I replied.

  “Hm. So what do you do?”

  “I’m a recently discharged soldier.”

  “Where did you serve?”

  “Golani.”

  “No shit, I thought you were some puny desk jockey. Nice, bro. Grandpa following in grandson’s footsteps. Like one of those feel-good newspaper articles. So, when were you discharged? July ’09?”

  “November 2007.”

  He laughed again. “You’re hilarious, dude, you’re still calling yourself recently discharged? I’m going to use that on myself one day. So you’re probably a pothead, backpacked through India and shit?”

  “Actually, no,” I said.

  “South America?”

  I shook my head. Waxman gave me a puzzled look.

  “So, like, what have you been doing all this time?”

  “A bunch of odd jobs, nothing serious.”

  My answers clearly flustered him. “So what are you saying, bro, don’t you want to, like, study something? Get ahead in life?”

  “Not right now,” I said.

  “Okay, now I get you,” he said. “I have a friend like you. Sort of a beach bum. Believe me, bro, I’d love to be like you guys, just going with the flow. You probably smoke weed all day, huh?”

  “Never even tried it.”

  “Ever?” he asked incredulously.

  “Not even cigarettes,” I said. It was a lie. I had smoked one cigarette, the night we left Lebanon. But I had no intention of sharing that with him. I can’t even begin to describe my disdain for people like Waxman, who can’t complete a sentence without the words “bro” or “dude.” Who are sure they have an explanation for just about everything. “Yup, bro, you totally get me. Going with the flow is my middle name.”

  “Yup, I’ve got a nose for people,” he replied, pleased with himself.

  I asked him who would replace him if he returned to the paratroopers. “To be honest, bro, just between you and me, I couldn’t give less of a shit. This whole unit is a fucking joke anyway. I give it two years, tops, before they dismantle it.”

  “What are you talking about? You guys just caught a drug mule, you’re at the top of your game.”

  “A fluke, dude, it was totally a fluke. The fact is this isn’t even an operational unit, and I doubt this event is going to change that.”

  “What do you mean it isn’t operational—they were trained as rifleman 07, weren’t they?”

  “Not really. It’s just something I gave them to boost morale. They’re barely 01.”

  I knew they were cutting corners over there, but I never thought it had gone that far. “But they’re securing a settlement close to the border, how can that be?”

  “I wouldn’t call it securing, more like sitting around on their asses,” Waxman said. “The settlements in the Jordan Valley started whining that the army wasn’t protecting them, even though there’s nothing to fight over here but sand. Anyway, about two years ago, that Rafi Eitan, the minister of pensioner affairs, offered the chief of staff an insane budget if they established a unit for the elderly, mainly for show. He wanted something for a photo op on TV, you know? To prove he did something with the seven seats he got in the Knesset. But bottom line, bro, no one has any illusions about us. Not the IDF and not the government. On the border itself they’ve got reserve soldiers, and if anything actually goes down there, which practically never happens, they won’t think twice before deploying some real infantrymen. It’s just a game everyone’s playing. The old geezers are getting something to do, the guys in the settlements know it’s better than nothing, and the IDF is getting funding for the whole project plus some extra spending money.”

  “And your soldiers don’t know it’s all a sham?” I asked angrily. “That the army is making money off their backs?”

  “Please, bro, you think they don’t know? They figured it out all by themselves. Your grandpa is the only person in the IDF who’s still taking this whole business seriously. I’ve run out of ways to explain to him that he has to learn to let go a little. Maybe you can have a word with him about it, it might help.”

  Waxman’s MIRS rang.

  “It’s the division commander,” he said proudly, and stepped outside. I stayed with Grandpa for a few more minutes. I couldn’t tell whether his expression was placid or perturbed.

  * * *

  The media began reporting the story about the old combat soldiers who caught the drug mule. The entire country was abuzz about it. Grandpa, who woke up the following day, was described as the commander of the operation and hailed a hero. A few journalists tried to swoop down on the hospital to land the first interview with Grandpa, but I made sure no one got in. The only person granted special permission to visit was the minister of the development of the Negev and Galilee, who told Grandpa he represented all that was good and right about Israel. Grandpa tried to appear indifferent to the commotion around him, but I knew all too well that he was loving the attention. That he felt he was finally getting the respect he was due.

  A week later, Grandpa returned to the base. Around the same time, the chief of staff announced that the unit had proven its operational value, and that he would explore the possibility of establishing elderly platoons in the Nahal Brigade and the paratroopers. Two days later, while I was attending an open day at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I got a phone call from the chambers of the president of Israel. They told me the president wanted to invite the four elderly heroes and their families to receive a special appreciation certificate.

  I told Grandpa that I had fought a war and was never awarded that kind of honor, and he replied with a smile that if I asked nicely, he’d give me a few tips.

  “Do you believe he got a commendation?” I asked Dad, but he noted it wasn’t a commendation, just a letter of appreciation. Ever since Dad had heard about the entire affair, he didn’t say a word. Didn’t even go to visit Grandpa at the hospital. He said he was terribly busy, that he had all these work things going on, but I knew he just couldn’t accept the fact he had been wrong about his father the whole time.

  21.

  alman1964@gmail.com

  November 1, 2009, 02:18:43

  Subject: Re: Hi Yuli

  I found your civics paper! It was in a shoebox under my bed. It was lying there in a pile of souvenirs I had brought over from my old apartment in Petah Tikva. Remember that apartment? What a dump, huh? I spent three years of my life there. To tell you the truth, I regret every moment. Wasted years. I should have gone to India the day after your Dad and I split up. What little still remained between you and me somehow got ruined in that apartment. You’d come over once every two weeks, and wouldn’t say a word to me. I know you think I didn’t try hard enough, but let’s face it, Yuli, you didn’t give me much of a chance. Maybe I wasn’t the perfect mother, but it’s not like you were the perfect son. I’d never come out and say it, but I think you know it too.

  And then came the phone call from that teacher of yours. What was her name? Dalia? I think it was Dalia. As I already wrote you, at that moment I thought it was a sign from above. I know it sounds like twisted logic to you, but I genuinely believed that even if you caught me going through your things, you wouldn’t be angry with me. That you’d even appreciate it, that I’d go to such lengths to be part of your life. You know how much I wanted my mother to go through my things? As a kid I used to write letters containing my most intimate secrets and scatter them around the house, hoping she’d read them, but she never so much as touched them. She just didn’t care, Yuli. So when I found your paper on the bed, I truly believed you had left it there for me to find.

  “We Were Sparta,” you called it, like the title of some highbrow book. I sat there for two hours and three cups of coffee,
and what can I tell you, Yuli, my child? I couldn’t understand it. Not really. The terms were completely foreign to me, your whole world view undecipherable. I never knew much about Athens or Sparta, so how could I understand what they were supposed to represent? I called your dad and asked him to explain it to me, but he refused to read something of yours that he didn’t get directly from you, and once again I felt as though he had defeated me. So I told him he was absolutely right and that I’d overreached, and then I hung up and read it all over again, from the beginning. And a third time. And I started reading about ancient Greece, hoping that if I understood your paper, maybe I’d begin to understand you. Like it was some key card into your mind. And you know what? I daresay maybe I did understand some of it. You wrote that there are two types of power in this world, a moderate power, like Athens was, and a violent one like Sparta. You said it was like the Haganah and the Lehi, or Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, that duos like those existed throughout human history. And if I’m not mistaken, you argued there was one major difference between them—that the moderate power sanctifies the quality of life, while the violent power sanctifies life itself. Meaning, Athens dealt primarily with improving the quality of its citizens’ lives, while Sparta was in constant battle over the mere right to live. You also wrote that as human beings, we want to believe the dominant power is the moderate one. That Martin Luther King made a greater impact on the world than Malcolm X, but that we’re just deluding ourselves, because we can’t handle the truth. Which is that human history is driven by its violent actors. “Like dark energy,” you wrote. And after that, you wrote the weirdest thing, which I don’t even know if I agree with, but you claimed that the violent force is also the moral one, because life itself should always come first. You wrote that Israel is the Sparta of the twenty-first century, and that that was a good thing. “Because where there is violence, there is life.” I’ll never forget that sentence. You wrote that people don’t even remember history. That Athenian culture might have contributed more to the world, to democracy, but it makes no difference. Because the great war between Athens and Sparta was won by the Spartans, and that, we mustn’t forget. What can I tell you, my child? All those words, all that violence, seemed so unrelated to you, to that inner peace of yours. I spent days on end trying to figure out where all those theories came from. The need to survive? To fight at all costs? Was it because of the divorce? The debts? I truly don’t know, Yuli. To this day, I can’t understand it. And it’s only now that I’m realizing it was with all those thoughts and convictions that you went off to war. God, that’s what you took with you into Lebanon?