Jerusalem Beach

by Iddo Gefen

  “What the fuck’s going on here?” he yelled, approaching in field pants, holding a wet toothbrush. He shoved me and a few other soldiers out of his way, giving a blaring whistle. Before Yanai realized what was going on, Sakal was already standing in front of him, asking the female soldier what she was doing here. She stood up straight and explained, then took a step forward without missing the opportunity to step on Yanai’s foot.

  “You’re looking for Korczak, sweetheart,” Sakal said. He turned around, stood on his tiptoes, and swept his gaze across us until he spotted me standing behind the others.

  “Go with him, the fatty with the curls will take you,” he said, pointing at me.

  I wasn’t offended by Sakal’s description. I was aware of the way I looked, but at that moment I felt that my large body stood in my way, rendering me incapable of hiding in a crowd. And I didn’t want to accept the assignment of leading her to Korczak, to be marked by Yanai and the rest as the one who had taken away the only female soldier ever to arrive at Neptune of her own volition. I tried making myself smaller and lowered my gaze to the ground, recalling the first time I played hide-and-seek only to be instantly found.

  “Show me where he is,” she said, grabbing my left elbow and pulling me toward a row of buildings, letting go only when we were outside everyone’s field of vision. She lowered her sunglasses and picked up her pace.

  “Are you sure you’re looking for Korczak?” I asked, just to make her say something. She slowed down, catching me panting, struggling to keep up.

  “We’ll find that out together,” she said, smiling a comforting smile. Her words, alluding to a shared future, alleviated my fear of getting on everyone’s wrong side.

  “Yanai’s just a jerk,” I said when we started walking again.

  “That’s his name?”

  I nodded.

  “Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I’ve met worse.” She asked how long we’d been serving in the outpost. I told her that the seniors were closing in on six months, but us juniors had only arrived from the training base three weeks ago.

  “You don’t look that young,” she complimented me.

  “Neither do you,” I said, and immediately started apologizing profusely for how that came out. She laughed. It made me happy. She asked whether Korczak was a junior or a senior.

  “Junior, but he’s twenty-four, just immigrated here.”

  “No kidding. And his name is really Korczak?”

  “Nickname.” I told her that on our first night at Neptune the soldiers from the senior platoon woke us up in the middle of the night. They made us stand outside in the lineup square while Sakal presented the Ten Rookie Commandments, from the unconditional requirement to salute a senior soldier to the strict rule against eating chocolate pudding cups. After he read the commandments, Sakal pulled Korczak aside and told him he was aware he was three years his senior, and that he had no intention of pulling rank on a guy who could be his grandfather.

  “But Korczak wouldn’t have it, he demanded to be treated the same as everybody else. Which is why they started calling him Korczak, because he’s like that guy from the Holocaust who went with the children.”

  “A righteous man,” she said. Instantly regretting having portrayed him in such a good light, I mentioned that it was simply the logical thing to do, and that it was just surprising because Korczak was a loner.

  “Don’t take it personally if he’s not too excited to see you. He’s just that kind of person.”

  “Believe me, a display of excitement is the last thing I want from anyone around here,” she replied and kept walking.

  3.

  KORCZAK WAS LYING on the top bunk of one of the many bunk beds in his room. A large piece of cardboard was perched against the windowpane, blocking the sunlight but not the heat. I wasn’t sure we would find him there. When he wasn’t on guard duty, Korczak would disappear for hours on end, and we’d try to guess where he’d pop up next. We usually got it wrong. On the second week of boot camp, the master sergeant of the training base caught him planting an herb garden behind the armory, and Yanai swore that only a week ago he had seen him walking out of the latrines after spending the entire morning there with an education corps guidebook. We were all familiar with Korczak’s book obsession. His idea of combat-ready was having something to read on him, and this time was no exception; we found him with his face buried in words again, lying on the bunk with a flashlight strapped to his head and his eyes fixed on a small black book. Military bunks weren’t designed for people as tall as him, and his large feet—one bare and the other in a gray sock—dangled over the bed.

  “You have a visitor,” I said. He didn’t respond.

  She approached the bed, tilted her head, and asked if he was reading The Stranger.

  “I assume that if the IDF enlisted you, you’re equipped with the cognitive ability to read,” he replied. He looked up and blinded her with the flashlight before returning to his book. “On the other hand,” he whispered, “I’ve been wrong about that before.”

  “What’s the book about?” she asked, her casual tone trying to mask the insult.

  He replied that it wasn’t entirely clear. “Basically, about a guy who kills another guy because of the sun.”

  She thought for a moment and then said that there was a time when killing because of the sun would have made no sense to her, but since enlisting it didn’t sound that far-fetched.

  Korczak looked at her again. “Spend a few days here and you’ll wonder why it doesn’t happen on a daily basis.”

  Placing her hand on the bunk, she said it was impressive he was able to read such a complicated book.

  “Actually, I’m just looking at the drawings, don’t forget I’m a grunt.”

  She smiled and explained that she meant the language, because he had recently immigrated.

  “I lived here for a few years in the past, so you could say I’m cheating.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes,” he replied without further comment. I think that if she had asked, he would have explained.

  “You’re from London?”

  “Cheshire, if that means anything to you.”

  “Oh! You’re the cat!”

  Korczak lowered his book. “Have you still not realized that you’ve made it to Wonderland?” he asked, bursting into laughter. “He’s the White Rabbit,” he said and pointed at me. “And you, you’re Alice.”

  “Why is she Alice?” I asked. Korczak didn’t reply.

  She told him she had come to the outpost just for him, that she heard he had enlisted in the paratroopers after earning a law degree from Oxford. She said she thought it was a great story. “People like to know what wonderful soldiers we have,” she noted, and removed the cap of the camera lens. “It would make them happy to hear about you.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Then you’re going to be just as disappointed as my mom was, since I don’t have a degree.”

  She laughed before realizing he wasn’t joking. “But your CO, he told me, I mean, I spoke to him a few times …”

  “My CO is an idiot who doesn’t know his soldiers,” he interrupted her. “I’m willing to bet you he doesn’t even know my name.” Korczak explained that he had dropped out at the beginning of his third year in law school, and that he had spent the two years leading up to his conscription as a clerk in a dilapidated city hall building. “You can put that in, I’m sure it’ll get you a Pulitzer.”

  I saw how the muscles in her face slackened; the realization that her whole trip was in vain was slowly seeping in. She sat on the lower bunk, held her head in her hands, and got up again.

  “Okay, listen, I know what we’ll do. We can say you went to law school without mentioning whether you graduated. A few white lies never killed anyone,” she said, and placed her hand on his.

  Korczak grimaced, shook off her hand, and returned to his book. “The nation will just have to make do without me,” he announced.

/>   She had yet to realize that she had already lost him. I think it wasn’t the idea of lying that bothered him so much but the fact that the entire conversation had a clear agenda.

  She tried to persuade him. At first he gave only monosyllabic answers, but eventually he stopped responding altogether. Finally she gave up and walked out of the room, with me in tow. She sat down on the curb and took out a cigarette. She asked me if I had a lighter. I said I didn’t.

  “What a shitty day,” she mumbled under her breath, stepping on a piece of broken glass lying on the road. “I don’t get it, do you have to be an asshole to serve here?” she wondered out loud, and quickly corrected herself. “I mean, not you. You’re sweet, really.”

  I escorted her back to the security gate. A moment before we parted ways she gave me a hug and took a pen out of her pocket. She rolled up my right sleeve and wrote her number on my forearm.

  “Try talking to Korczak,” she asked. “If you get him to change his mind, give me a call.”

  She gave me another hug, and this time a kiss on the cheek too. I think she wanted the other soldiers to see. Then she turned around and walked back to the bus station, disappearing into the desert from which she had come.

  I heard clapping behind me.

  “Well, did you fuck her?” Yanai yelled out the window of the security booth, but I pretended not to hear. I quickly slunk off to my room, trying not to make eye contact. I kept turning it over in my mind, the prickly touch of her pen etching blue ink into my skin.

  4.

  I KEPT HER number in my cell phone under the name “Girl from the north.” I also wrote it down in three different places, but still tried to preserve the traces of the digits she had scrawled on me. Most of them faded after two days, but during the weekend leave briefing on Thursday evening, I could still make out the four and the seven.

  The briefing took place earlier than usual because Waxman and the other officers had to stay overnight at the training base for a regimental day seminar. Waxman glanced at his watch and announced that we had less than twelve hours before our weekend leave; that he wanted to believe a company of combat soldiers could get through one night without a babysitter. Then everyone scattered and I went up to the watchtower for guard duty.

  I didn’t like guarding at night. Most soldiers don’t like pulling all-nighters in the tower. For me the reason wasn’t tiredness or lack of sleep, but rather the elusive feeling that if I were ever to lose my mind, it would probably happen there. As if the soul’s defense mechanisms were weaker at night. There was something about nights in the tower that magnified the feeling of detachment, the feeling that even if a missile were to destroy the entire outpost, no one would know. I would look at the dark sand for hours, wondering whether one day, in the distant future, Neptune would become the center of the world; that maybe a million years from now, right where I was standing, there would be a swimming pool, and dozens of kids diving into the water one after the other, not knowing a thing about the desperate soldier who had once stood there.

  Around 2:00 A.M., shortly before my shift was over, I noticed a commotion starting down in the outpost, unusual for that time of night. Soldiers were crowding around the cabin showers. I peered through my binoculars, trying to see what the fuss was all about, but I couldn’t make out a thing until one soldier burst through the crowd. It was Yanai. He was running toward his room in nothing but a towel and underwear, clearly agitated. Sakal emerged slightly after him, walking in the direction of the lineup square with slow and confident steps. Holding a plastic chair, he placed it in the middle of the square and stood on it. Another soldier, who couldn’t stop laughing, handed him a megaphone, and Sakal tapped on it a few times.

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” he called out, then waited for the rest of the soldiers to come out of their rooms with bleary-eyed confusion. Sakal raised his hand and announced that a severe crime had been committed in Neptune that night.

  “The smart-ass will stand rookie trial!” he announced, and added that the defendant must report to the CO’s office with an advocate, and that everyone was invited to come and witness for themselves the fate of rookies who broke the rules.

  My replacement arrived twenty minutes before my shift ended, said that he thought a shitstorm was brewing and that he wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. I knew he was right, but my curiosity got the better of me.

  5.

  THE DOOR WAS OPEN. A few soldiers were huddled together on the bunks, listening to Yanai’s shaky voice.

  “Bejo started yelling at me to get out of the shower. He said that he and two other guys were sitting outside the canteen and saw me leaving the CO’s room with a grilled cheese. I told them it couldn’t have been me, that I was in the shower washing my hair like a little girl for an hour, but he wouldn’t listen. Then Sakal showed up, got the entire story from him and now is putting me on trial.” His left hand continued to shake even after he finished talking. His eyes were red. It was the first time I ever saw him like that. “They’re going to fuck me over.”

  “Come on, bro, they only really beat the shit out of rookies in Golani, here it’s just for kicks, they don’t actually hurt you,” someone said.

  Yanai nodded.

  “Yeah, you’re right, bro.” He got up and started pacing the room. “They better not piss me off even more, because if they do I’ll beat the crap out of every last one of them.” Maybe he felt better tossing around these empty threats.

  “Okay. So I need an advocate to come to this shit with me. Any takers?”

  No one said a word.

  “What, am I the only real man around here?” he wondered in an irritated, unhinged tone. I think Yanai knew that wasn’t the reason. The simple truth was that no one could stand him. He fixed his eyes on the uneven floor tiles.

  “Did you do it?” A voice emerged from the corner of the room. It was Korczak, sitting in a crouching position. “Did you eat the grilled cheese?”

  “No, they just want to teach me a lesson because I’m an asshole.”

  “Then I’ll come.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Korczak replied.

  Yanai bit his lip. “Thanks, bro. I appreciate it.”

  Korczak stood up and started scanning the room.

  “Has anyone seen Kenan?” he asked. At first I thought I misheard. But after a moment he asked again if anyone had seen me.

  “He’s probably hiding somewhere stuffing his face with a pita,” some soldier sitting next to Yanai said. Yanai immediately slapped him on the head. “You moron, he’s here.”

  Someone else yelled in my direction that they were just joking around, but I was more concerned with Korczak’s intentions.

  “I want you to come with us.”

  “I just got off guard duty, I’m beat,” I said, yawning, failing to understand how once again I was finding myself smack in the middle of everything. “Why me?”

  “Because Sakal has a soft spot for you, that’s why.”

  “He’s right. So Sakal might just go easier on me,” Yanai said.

  “Can’t do any harm, that’s for sure. Don’t worry, he won’t do anything to you,” Korczak added.

  I tried weighing the pros and cons as quickly as I could, but before I could reach a definitive conclusion, Korczak turned around, placed his hand on Yanai’s head, and moved it from side to side. “You cut your hair today?” he asked him. “Which number clipper did you use?”

  “Three.”

  Korczak mumbled that he had a few things to take care of before the trial and left the room.

  It was the first time he irritated me, getting me in this mess without thinking twice.

  “That Korczak’s an odd one,” Yanai said, standing beside me.

  “Annoying one,” I replied.

  “Yeah, right?” Yanai scratched his head. “You know, if this is too much for you, you don’t have to come, we’re cool.”

  A note of helplessness crept into his voice, and no matter
how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but feel some compassion toward him. “I’ll come. I just hope it’ll help.”

  “You’re a real champ, bro,” he said, giving me a gentle pat on the back.

  * * *

  Half an hour later the two of us were standing outside the CO’s office. Korczak appeared only moments before the trial began, an inexplicable smile plastered on his face.

  “Where were you?” I asked, already ticked off, but Korczak wouldn’t say.

  “Lower your head and keep your eyes on the floor,” he told Yanai, and before he managed to explain, the door opened and Bejo was standing there.

  “You have twenty seconds to put your berets on backward, take off your boot blousers, and enter the room silently,” he said, and we quickly followed the orders.

  6.

  KORCZAK WAS THE first to enter, then Yanai and me.

  “Salute your seniors,” Bejo demanded, and told us to stand against the wall. We obeyed. Eight or nine seniors were sitting to our left on two frayed leather couches, looking at us with the solemn expressions of a grand jury. Sakal was standing in front of us, in the middle of the room, in a puffed fleece jacket and green baseball cap, the Israeli flag and company symbol hanging on the wall behind him. He was holding the seniors’ stick—a thinly carved branch that granted its holder the authority to rule on matters of seniority, and served as an unconsoling consolation prize for those who were about to be discharged.

  “Soldier, state your name, rank, and personal number,” Sakal said.

  Yanai replied. His beret fell on the floor, but he didn’t notice.