To Be An Israeli: The Fourth Book in the All My Love, Detrick series

by Roberta Kagan

Janice sat up in bed and pulled the sheets over her bare breasts.

  “Elan? What’s going on?”

  “Israel is going to war. I have to go…”

  “What? Now? You can’t go. You can’t just leave me here in a strange hotel room. I need you now. You can’t just go. Elan, I’m going to have a baby…”

  Elan turned and began to pack the few things he’d brought with him.

  “There will be no time for you to return home to get anything else you might need, sir,” the young soldier said.

  “Here.” Elan emptied his pockets of all the cash he had brought with him and threw the money on the bed. “Take a taxi home. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  “Elan, are you serious? You can’t go. Tell them—you can’t go, Elan!”

  “Israel needs me. I told you when we met that if Israel called, I would be there. My country needs me.”

  “Elan, this is crazy. You could get killed,” she said, jumping out of bed with the sheet wrapped around her. Then turning to the soldier, she pulled on the sleeve of his uniform. “You can’t take my husband. He is going to be a father…”

  The soldier did not answer. He just stood straight and steady, waiting for Elan.

  Elan had finished packing and walked over to kiss Janice goodbye, but she pushed him away.

  “I don’t want you to go. I forbid you to go.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said then took his bag and nodded to the soldier. Elan and the soldier began walking down the hall. Almost tripping over the sheet she had wrapped around her, she ran after them into the hall and called to Elan. He did not turn around as he walked with the soldier to the elevator.

  “If you go, Elan, I swear I won’t be here when you get back. I’m not going to go back to that shack of a house to live with your mother without you. I’m pregnant. If you leave me now, I swear I will go home.”

  Elan stepped into the elevator, and the metal doors swung shut. Janice let out a cry of disbelief, but he was gone. Janice sunk to the floor and sat, staring down the hall of the hotel. Her mind was racing. How could he just leave like that? She could understand if he were single but not a married man with a child on the way. Hot tears of anger streamed down her cheeks as she got up from the floor. Nothing she could do would change things. With the sheet still draped over her to cover her nakedness, Janice went back into the room and slammed the door behind her and then picked up the telephone.

  “I need a long distance operator. I want to place a call to the United States.”

  She gave the operator the number. It seemed like hours until the phone finally began to ring.

  “Hello?” a man answered.

  “Daddy…it’s Janice. I want to come home.”

  “For a visit?”

  “No, forever. I’m done here. I’m done with Elan, with his mother, and with Israel.”

  Janice’s father took a deep breath and smiled to himself. Finally, the call he was waiting for had come at last. He knew it was just a matter of time before his daughter came home. She was an American girl, a spoiled one at that. Living the life she’d chosen was not something her father believed her to be capable of doing.

  “I’ll wire you money to buy a plane ticket. It should be there by morning.”

  “Daddy…I’m so upset…Israel is at war, and Elan left me in a hotel all alone. And… I’m pregnant.”

  “Listen to me. Settle down. I’m going to take care of everything. Now…what’s the name of the hotel? I’ll wire the money there. I’ll send enough for you to take a taxi to the airport and buy a ticket home.”

  “Daddy.” Janice was weeping now. “He left me here. He wouldn’t even try to tell the soldier who came to get him that he needed to be with his wife and unborn child. What kind of a man is that?”

  “It will all be okay, sweetheart. You’re coming home.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Elan had suspected that war was on the way. He kept track of everything going on around him. He knew that Israel’s neighbors had been threatening her for a long time. He’d seen this coming, but was just not sure how or when. He realized that his life was in danger, but there had never been a day that he’d not been willing to risk everything for the country he loved.

  Israel was not like other countries. Its people, the Israelis, knew that their attachment to their land was like a vein to their hearts. It was their lifeline. Now he sat on a bus on his way to the Hatzor Air Base to defend his first love, Israel, from its enemies. He’d not slept much the night before, and he dozed on and off as the bus ambled over the rocky terrain.

  He thought about Janice. She did not understand how he felt about this country. How could she? She was an American. She’d never known real anti-Semitism. Elan had seen it all of his life, not only from his Arab neighbors, but he’d heard the stories from his friends who’d survived the Nazis in Europe and finally found their way to the Jewish homeland. Without Israel, it was only a matter of time before another Hitler rose to power and once again the Jews would face annihilation as they had many times throughout history. He took a deep breath. Every Jew must put Israel first. That was just the way it had to be.

  Well, there would be hell to pay with that little red-headed spitfire-of-a-wife of his when he got home, but it didn’t matter. Nothing personal mattered as much as keeping this country safe. Only another Israeli could possibly understand.

  If it had not been for his devotion to this land and its people, he would have been married to the woman he truly loved, Katja. How beautiful she looked last night. When their eyes met, he had felt a shiver run through his entire body like an electric shock. It was undeniable that he still loved her and still lusted for her, too. It was strange how life works. It had only been a few hours since he had seen her last, but it was the first time he’d seen her since their breakup. Perhaps he was going to die in battle, and that was God’s final gift to him—a glimpse of his one true love.

  As much as he would have denied it to anyone who would have ever asked, he was afraid to die or worse, be permanently disabled. He was a Jew, but he’d never really been religious. Right now he wished that he could grasp onto something that would make the idea of death and pain easier to bear. Religion was good for that, he thought and laughed a little to himself.

  Looking around the bus, he saw so many young men, all of them in their IDF uniforms. Most of them quiet, probably thinking the same things he was thinking. Then in the front of the bus two rows back from the driver, in the seat on the aisle, he saw a face he recognized. Wasn’t that Mendel Zaltstein? He remembered Mendel from the kibbutz. Mendel was a friend of Katja and Rachel’s. Elan wondered if Mendel knew anything about Katja.

  Mendel must be living in Tel Aviv because the bus that Elan was riding was a bus filled with men from Tel Aviv. Although Elan lived in Jerusalem, he’d been in Tel Aviv at the show the night before so he was being transported with this group. Elan wondered where Katja lived now. Was she living on the kibbutz near the Golan Heights? After the breakup, he’d not heard any news about her. Perhaps later when they arrived at their destination, he would talk to Mendel and see if he could casually find out some information about Katja.

  CHAPTER 33

  Mendel’s head pounded like a drummer was using his brain as a snare drum. He bit his lip so hard that it bled as he sat on the bus, helpless to take care of Katja and his daughter. He was terrified of battle. He was afraid of death and of being captured and tortured. But even more than that, he was afraid that something bad would happen to those he loved.

  Even Zofia, his mother-in-law, who’d always been a dear friend, came to his mind. With his father-in-law dead, there was no man left to protect the women in his life. Mendel trembled at the thought of Katja alone with her mother and the baby. At least, he’d left a nice sum of money in the bank, and a very handsome life insurance policy. His policy did not have a war clause in case he was killed in combat. If something happened, Katja would never want for anything. But it
was blood money, stained with the blood of trusting Jews who believed the drugs to be safe. Mendel ran his hands through his hair that had recently begun thinning. His hairline had receded quite noticeably over the past year.

  He didn’t remember much of his training in the IDF. After all, it had been many years ago. And even when he was a soldier, he’d only just gotten by, but he’d never excelled. Many of the other men were bigger, stronger, and more adapted to military life. For Mendel, boot camp was a struggle followed by two difficult years in the IDF which he’d been glad to see come to an end. Now as he rode on this bus, knowing that soon he would go to battle, he tried very hard to remember all that he’d learned. He would need that knowledge to survive.

  As he sucked in a deep breath, someone came up beside him and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up into the face of a man he recognized, but at first, he couldn’t place him. Too much was happening all at once. Then he remembered. It was Elan, Katja’s ex-fiancé. Mendel had only met him a few times, and whenever he had seen Elan, he would avoid looking directly into his eyes. That was because Mendel had always been in love with Katja, and it hurt him so deeply to see her engaged to Elan. Then when Elan had left Katja, Mendel had forgotten him completely…until now.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.” Elan pretended not to remember Mendel’s name. “But you look very familiar to me. I think you might know my ex-fiancé, Katja Zuckerman?” Elan said.

  “Yes, I know her.” Mendel cleared his throat. As he looked into Elan’s eyes, he felt threatened. Katja still had feelings for this man, and the last thing Mendel wanted was for Elan to come back into their lives. “I’m Mendel Zaltstein, and Katja’s my wife. We are married with a child.”

  The color faded from Elan’s face. Katja was married? To Mendel? When? How? And they had a baby? Yes, Elan had to admit that he was married, but that was different, or was it? He’d never really allowed himself to believe that Katja would go on without him. Elan held on tightly to the metal bar overhead so that he would not lose his footing as the bus shuffled forward on its way into the dark, unknown future.

  CHAPTER 34

  When the money from her father arrived via wire, Janice took a taxi to the airport and bought a plane ticket home. She’d had enough of Elan, enough of his mother, and certainly enough of Israel and its crazy overly devoted citizens. Soon she would return to her comfortable life. No more getting up early and going to the market or coming home filthy and exhausted at night.

  When she’d first met Elan, the idea of being poor and married to a struggling Israeli citizen with his sexy body and penetrating gaze had been romantic for her. She’d embraced the country and the challenge. However, now he had marched off to war, leaving her pregnant, caring more for his ideals than he did for her. And to make matters worse, she had no idea how long she would be stuck alone with Jerusha, her horrific mother-in-law. Even her name sounded hostile to her.

  Janice was tired of Elan’s way of life. She wanted things the way they used to be. It would be nice to spend an afternoon getting her hair cut at the beauty salon or to meet her girlfriends for lunch and gossip at a fancy restaurant. She longed to go to expensive department stores where she, with her father’s checkbook, would buy lovely clothes and designer handbags. She wanted to travel, not only in Israel but all over the world. Elan could never give her that life, and right now, she was quite ready to abandon the life he had given her.

  Who did he think he was? He’d told her all this bullshit about his devotion to Israel when they were dating. It all sounded so exciting and passionate, but she wasn’t pregnant then. How dare he walk out and just leave her alone, pregnant, and not even safe at their home but miles away at a hotel in another city? What kind of a man does that?

  If he were standing in front of her right now…if she confronted him and told him her feelings, she knew exactly what his answer would be.

  “This is what it means to be an Israeli,” he would say. She could hear his voice. It infuriated her. Israel! How could a country matter so much to its people? She just couldn’t grasp how a man could put a country before his family, before his wife and unborn child. But she learned the hard way that to the Israelis, their homeland came before anyone or anything. Well, Janice was not an Israeli. She was an American, and she was going home: home to her parents, home to the land of plenty, home to a place far away from this war and her inconsiderate, selfish husband and his unbearable mother.

  CHAPTER 35

  The bus rocked and tipped as it continued north on its path up to the Golan Heights.

  “Katja Zuckerman is your wife?” Elan asked, trying to hide his emotions.

  “Yes, we’re married. Her name is Katja Zaltstein now. We have a little girl,” Mendel said, but what he wanted to say was, I hope you will respect our family and stay away from my wife.

  “So.” Elan managed a smile. “Can I sit down?”

  Mendel reluctantly moved his duffel bag, and he felt the skin on his legs prickle when Elan sat beside him.

  “You live in Tel Aviv?” Elan asked.

  “Yes. Yes, we do…”

  “I’m married, too. I live in Jerusalem.”

  Mendel nodded. “That’s good.” He sucked in a deep breath of air. Maybe he was imagining that Elan still had feelings for his wife. After all, Elan was married.

  There wasn’t much to say. There was too much left unsaid, and that made the conversation stiff and awkward.

  “My wife is pregnant,” Elan said, nodding.

  “Mazel Tov.”

  “Yes, thank you. I just found out last night. Then, well, the war broke out and…here we are. I suppose it was to be expected if you kept an eye on the news.”

  “I was watching but hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Mendel said.

  “Yeah, well, did you really think that Israel would be left to live in peace? Jews have no peace. All we have is Israel. If Israel is destroyed, we will all go down with it.”

  “Yes, I know. We all know. Still, I hoped.”

  “An optimist, huh?” Elan laughed bitterly. “I’ve never had that luxury.”

  “What good does it do you to think about all the bad things that can happen? Can you stop them from happening by thinking about them over and over?”

  “No, but I’ve lived my whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Well, you waited, and now it’s dropped,” Mendel said, giving Elan a look of disgust.

  CHAPTER 36

  Mendel felt the sweat drip down the shirt of his uniform as he stepped off the bus into the heat of the Israeli desert. The first sergeant was barking orders, and Mendel followed the other men who’d gotten off the bus into a line. War! Guns! Fighting! Death! Mendel was petrified. His mind was playing tricks on him again. He couldn’t help but wonder if this war was nothing more than a punishment from God for what he’d done with that drug. But if he were being punished, then why were all of these other poor souls here in line beside him, sweating and smelling of perspiration, knowing that soon they could, quite possibly, look death straight in the eyes.

  Mendel glanced over at Elan, who looked calm as if he did this sort of thing every day. How could he be so composed with the sound of bombing in the background, with the air filling with black smoke, with the uncertainty of the future?

  “Zaltstein, wake up…this is no time to be daydreaming,” the first sergeant said to Mendel. “You’re part of the Golani Brigade. Line up for that bus right there,” he said pointing toward another bus with a line of men getting on board.

  The men he was going with were all adults, but some were barely of age. He looked around. In other lines, they looked like boys, children. He took his place at the bus beside a young Sephardic man, who couldn’t be more than eighteen, who nodded a welcome without smiling. Mendel felt the sting of the salt from a bead of sweat drip from his eyebrow into his eye. He wiped his eye with the back of his hand.

  Again he thought if he died in battle, what would become of hi
s wife and his daughter? Who would take care of them? Would his death be painful or quick? After he died, would he just cease to exist, or was it possible that he would remain on Earth, watching, unable to speak, unable to help those he loved, invisible? Thoughts of his past actions ran through his mind like the tape in a cash register. A dollar for this mistake, fifty cents for that one, adding up the good and bad choices he’d made in his life. Is that the way that God would decide his future? Mendel’s breath was shallow.

  From across the way, Elan heard the first sergeant say, “CPT Amsel, your bus to Hatzor Air Base is loading up over there.”

  Elan nodded at the first sergeant, threw his duffel bag over his shoulder and walked to the bus. Soon it would all begin. Israel was about to be attacked or would soon attack her enemies. Elan took one more look around at Mendel and the other men. These men, with the sun beating on their heads, were getting on their buses. Once they got their orders, they would be in the hands of God, and fate would decide who would live, who would be wounded, and who would never return home.

  CHAPTER 37

  The last time Janice had seen Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, she and Elan were coming into the city for their wedding. Now she was alone, glad to be home but a little sad that her dreams had been shattered. As always, the airport was full of people.

  Someone with a shaved head and wearing a long, orange robe handed her a flower. Then he asked her for money, but she dropped the flower and waved him away. Hippies sat on the floor at the airport, barefooted and wearing tie-dyed clothing that had “END THE WAR NOW” written in black marker on the front. Men and women sauntered by her with long, unkempt hair and torn blue jeans. A couple, a man and a woman, both dressed in black robes, their eyes painted with thick black eyeliner and mascara, invited her to take a magazine that said something about the unification of Christ and Satan. Janice shook her head, trembling as she walked away quickly.