by Ruth Gruber
It seemed fitting to celebrate victory in the castlelike edifice the Germans had built after Kaiser Wilhelm II came here, in 1898, and received Theodor Herzl. Now it was one of the British-army headquarters.
The nurses changed into party dresses and drove across the ridge to Augusta Victoria, whose massive wings and tall tower filled the skyline between Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives. Its formidable stone walls were lit up with lanterns. Flags and streamers waved in the night winds that came off the desert. In the great halls, army bands played. Raquela and the nurses joined the officers and soldiers. They ate sandwiches and brandy-filled English fruitcake. They waltzed and fox-trotted and jitterbugged. In long lines, shaking their hips and waving their index fingers in the air, they snaked up and down the long halls in the conga. They sang English and Hebrew songs and joked that the old German empress Augusta Victoria must be rolling in her grave. They toasted the king; they toasted the empire. And, silently, Raquela toasted Carmi, who would soon come home.
But Carmi did not come home.
The men of the Jewish Brigade were detained by the British in Europe. It was clear to everyone in Palestine that Whitehall feared that the demobilized soldiers might use their military skill to help Jewish survivors enter Palestine.
Raquela waited impatiently, joining the ranks of the other lonely women. The waiting during the postwar days seemed interminable.
The men of the Jewish Brigade began to travel across Europe in small groups on weekend passes. Carmi described their meetings with the survivors of the concentration camps: “We fling our arms around each other. They look upon us as saviors. Messengers from the Holy Land—the land they dreamed of. The dream that sustained them, helped them stay alive in the death camps. We look upon them as flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood.”
Raquela put Carmi’s letter in her apron pocket and descended to the large terrace on the second floor of the nursing school. She sat in a lounging chair, fanning herself. The June day was fiercely hot.
She shut her eyes. When would Carmi come home? Her body turned soft when she thought about him. She could feel his arms holding her close; her mind replayed their all-too-brief evenings together, that first night at the soldiers’ club, their walks on Mount Scopus. She could taste his kisses on her lips. Then she remembered his strange jealousy when Shmuel, the young intern, approached them in the university garden. Maybe the war had changed Carmi, matured him.
In February, scarcely seven months away, she would be graduating. What would they do? In his letters he talked of going back to school, of studying agronomy at the Hebrew University School of Agriculture, in Rehovoth. He kept writing, saying he wished they were engaged. What would her life be like if she were married to a farmer? Nursing was her life; delivering babies. Would Carmi—
Her reveries were interrupted; she heard the terrace door opening behind her.
“Shalom, Raquela.” It was Judith.
Raquela sat up. “Come join me and cool off.” She motioned to a lounging chair beside her.
Judith walked out on the terrace. “I have only a few minutes. I’m on duty.”
Judith was now a teacher in the nursing school. She had graduated in 1944 and received the coveted Henrietta Szold Award as outstanding student. Mrs. Cantor had recognized her unusual character, her empathy for other students, and prevailed upon her to give up her dream of becoming a midwife and to join the school staff. She was not only teaching now; she was also the assistant housemother.
Each week, when Mrs. Simonson went off duty, Judith was in charge. It was she who checked the beds at midnight with her flashlight. But unlike Mrs. Simonson, she closed her eyes when she saw an empty bed. And when the girls returned from their dates, their eyes often red from tearful good-byes, she comforted them. She herself had fallen in love with an oboe player, Elie Freud. They planned to marry now that the war was over.
A cool wind blew over the terrace.
“How welcome this breeze is,” Judith said. “I think I will join you for a few minutes.
She leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes.
After a while Raquela spoke softly. “I had a letter from Carmi today. I feel so restless—even irritable. I keep worrying about the future. If only I knew when he was coming home.”
“It’s good you get letters. At least you know he’s alive.”
Raquela saw Judith lower her head.
Slowly, as if she were dredging the words out of a well of pain, Judith said, “If I could only get one letter—one little note from my mother telling me she’s alive.”
Raquela wanted to comfort her. But she could find no phrases. How trivial her problems seemed compared to Judith’s.
Judith folded her hands on her white uniform. “I still see her, that last day, filling up my suitcase with all those hats and dresses. I see her face every time I sit on the bus. I see it when they bring new patients to the hospital. I see it in my dreams. I wake up screaming, ‘Mama.’”
JULY 26, 1945
Again, elation in Jerusalem. The Labour Party in Britain was swept into office in the July 1945 elections.
For years, as loyal opposition, the Labour Party had denounced the White Paper, deploring the pro-Arab stance of the Conservatives. Even Churchill, who called himself a proud Zionist, had continued the old policy all during the war. Now Churchill and the Conservatives were out. The British people, exhausted from the deprivations and tragedies of the war, weary of the long separations from their families, wanted a change, a clean sweep, new faces, more democratic goals.
In Palestine, the news seemed to herald the long awaited end of the White Paper. But within days, Ernest Bevin, the Labour Party’s new foreign minister, reneged: election promises were only promises; the White Paper was still the law of the land.
“Why?” Raquela asked Arik. He was her mentor in politics, as in medicine.
It was early evening. They were sitting on the wide window ledge in the hospital overlooking the Arab village of Issawiya, which lay just below.
“Why?” he repeated. “Because oil talks louder than promises.”
“Where do we go from here, Arik? Whom do we turn to?” She followed his glance down the mountain.
“The United States,” he said. “It’s the new world power. They will decide our fate. Listen to this.” He drew a clipping from the pocket of his white coat. “It’s a story about President Truman. He sent his representative, a man called Earl G. Harrison, the dean of the faculty of law of the University of Pennsylvania, to look into the conditions of the DPs (the Displaced Persons) in the camps. Truman was so shocked by his report that he has asked Bevin to let one hundred thousand survivors of the Holocaust be allowed to come here.”
Raquela put her hand on Arik’s arm. “Will Bevin do it?”
Arik shrugged. “Who knows?”
OCTOBER 1945
Raquela looked up in the dining room. “Carmi!” she shouted.
“Who’s he?” Arik asked, looking at the tall young officer standing in the doorway.
“My friend. He’s back from Italy.”
She pushed the chair from the table and ran toward Carmi. She felt Arik’s eyes following her.
Carmi enveloped her in his arms. He shut his eyes. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “You’re real. I’m not dreaming this.”
Her body trembled. “Carmi! You didn’t write me you were coming home.”
“There was no time. A ship was leaving Italy and they let some of us from the Brigade go aboard.”
She took his hand. “I want you to meet one of the gynecologists I’m working with. You remember I wrote you about Dr. Aron Brzezinski?”
She led him around the dining-room tables. Arik stood up.
“Dr. Brzezinski, may I present Lieutenant Eisenberg?”
The two men shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. Will you join us?”
“Am I interrupting something—a medical meeting, or a—?” Carmi’s eyes moved from Arik to Raquela.<
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“Not at all.” Arik was expansive. “We’re just having lunch together. It’s an honor to have you with us.”
“Carmi, you sit right down here next to Arik.” Raquela moved a chair away from the table. “You two get to know each other while I go get you a tray of food.”
She walked to the crowded cafeteria line, the words Carmi is back singing in her ears. The two men who meant most to her in the world were now sitting together. Carmi and Arik. Boyfriend and teacher.
The line moved slowly. She hardly noticed. She was fantasizing the next weeks. They were a threesome, walking along Mount Scopus, prowling the Old City. Carmi, twenty-one, dazzling in uniform, the war hero. Arik, thirty-five, in his white medical coat, wise, philosophical, her rebbe. And she, in her blue gown and crisscrossed white apron, walking between them, holding their arms.
She filled Carmi’s tray with boiled chicken, chopped eggplant, rye bread, and tea, and smiled secretly as she carried it through the hospital dining room.
At the table, she stopped short. The two men were silent. What was going on? Carmi looked sullen and glum; Arik looked baffled.
She placed the dishes in front of Carmi and sat down.
She tried to start a conversation a few times, and failed.
Always ask people to talk about what they do, she had read somewhere. It brings out the best in them. She tried it.
“Carmi, I wish you would tell Arik some of those things you wrote me about, some of those things you did with the Jewish Brigade in Italy.”
Carmi glared at her. “I’m not in the mood!”
Arik said, “It’s all right. I understand.”
Carmi shoveled the food angrily into his mouth. He was obviously trying to control himself. Finally he exploded, “Do you two eat lunch together like this every day? How long has this been going on?”
“Carmi!” Raquela snapped. “You have no reason, no right, to ask that.”
Arik moved his chair away from the table.
“Please don’t go, Arik,” Raquela said. “You haven’t finished your lunch.”
“I’m sure you want to spend some time together. Raquela, I have to see Miss Landsmann anyway. Good-bye, Lieutenant.”
Carmi nodded. Raquela thought she heard him grinding his teeth.
She tried to eat, but the food was gall in her mouth. She watched Carmi finish his lunch.
Her mind was churning. She had been so eager, so impatient, for him to come home. This was the moment she had dreamed of. Now it was ashes. He really doesn’t trust me, she thought. Maybe he’s incapable of trusting any woman. He broke up with Debby because she was jealous of him. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe he can’t trust anyone. Maybe not even himself.
How can I be a nurse and live with that kind of jealousy? A nurse has to associate with doctors, men and women. He’d go insane, and I would, too, if I had to come home every night and explain myself to him. What if I had night duty?
She shuddered. “Let’s go,” she said, “unless you want something else to eat.”
“I’ve had enough.”
Silently, almost without thinking, she led him along the ridge of Mount Scopus to the university garden. They walked through the pergola and descended to the circular bench, where they sat close together as they had done before, looking at the incredible panorama. But now Raquela was barely aware of the Old City.
They sat in stony silence, waiting.
Finally, Carmi broke the silence. “Who is this doctor friend of yours?” he asked truculently. “I can’t even pronounce his name.”
Raquela exploded. “He’s one of the most respected doctors in the country. He’s my teacher.”
“The way he looks at you, I’d say he’s a lot more than your teacher.”
“Carmi, how dare you?”
“How dare I?” His blue eyes were iced with anger. “How dare I? You called him by his first name. What kind of teacher-student relationship is that?”
“You don’t understand how informal most of us are in the hospital. I love nursing, and delivering babies, and Dr. Brzezinski is a great gynecologist and obstetrician.”
Carmi sneered. “And I suppose he holds your hand every time you deliver a baby.”
“Stop it, Carmi! I’ve been loyal to you. Dr. Brzezinski is just a good friend.”
His face seemed drained of color. Raquela stared at him. He was a stranger to her and somehow frightening.
She bit her lip, feeling guilt. He’s been away so long—fighting Nazis, liberating the survivors of the death camps. A soldier’s life is so lonely…I must give him time.
She gave him time. After work they walked the quiet streets of Bet Hakarem; they sat in cafés in downtown Jerusalem, drinking coffee; they went to the movies. She was determined not to give him a single reason for jealousy. Yet whenever she worked closely with Arik, she felt restless, vulnerable, confused.
It was a custom among the student nurses to arrange their schedules so that any nurse whose boyfriend came back from the war could spend three full days with him.
Raquela and Carmi planned their three days carefully. The first day they would go to Tel Adashim, so Carmi could see where she had done her “national service.” Then they would visit Carmi’s aunt Malka, in Petah Tikva, the oldest Jewish agricultural settlement in the land just outside of Tel Aviv, and the last day of their holiday they would spend in Tel Aviv proper and at the beach.
The October day was flawless, the air clean and cool, as they sat in the intercity bus, holding hands. In Tel Adashim, Carmi, his hair golden in the sunlight, moved through the rustic farm village like a native son, picking up the soil, smelling it, admiring the even rows of barnyard crops, stroking the bark of slender trees that opened to the sky, chatting easily with the farm families with whom Raquela had lived.
“This is what I want, Raquela.” He spoke with quiet conviction. “This is my dream. All the time—all those years in Egypt, in Italy, in Europe—I saw the two of us spending our lives in a farm village like this one.”
He put his arm around her waist. Raquela walked in silence. Spending our lives…could she spend her life on a farm? What about her work? There was always a need for nurses and midwives, especially in the rural areas. The thought of nursing brought Arik to mind. Guilt rose again. Why should she think of Arik during these three precious days with Carmi?
“We ought to get started for Petah Tikva,” she said, “before it gets too late.”
In the bus she put her head on Carmi’s shoulder, relaxed in his contentment.
The two-hour bus trip brought them to Petah Tikva before dark. They walked from the bus stop through the streets of the little town, where each family owned its own home and cultivated its own land. It was a moshav, a cooperative village, and it looked like a European shtetl transplanted to Israel. Pioneers from Jerusalem had come here to farm in 1878, convinced they could redeem the malaria-ridden swampland. The determined farmers had turned the marshes into vast groves of citrus fruits and vineyards. Now Raquela breathed the air of Petah Tikva, of orange blossoms and pungent barnyard odors.
Aunt Malka’s house was a typical Petah Tikva white stucco cottage with a door in the middle and a window on each side. The back of the house had a garden filled with flowers and shaded with lush green orange and lemon trees.
Carmi’s aunt greeted Raquela effusively. Aunt Malka and Mama had been classmates at the Teachers’ Seminar and had remained good friends. “And now,” the older woman bubbled, “to think Tova’s daughter is the girlfriend of my favorite nephew!”
Raquela followed her into the scrupulously clean, simply furnished living-dining room, called the “salon.” Through the doorway she could see the one bedroom and the large sunny kitchen.
“Sit down. Sit down.” Aunt Malka took Raquela’s arm and led her to the narrow sofa bed. Carmi followed them, smiling broadly.
“How about some coffee?” Aunt Malka said.
Raquela nodded. Aunt Malka was a slim pretty woman with
long brown hair worn pioneer style over her ears and rolled into a bun. Her fair skin was made ruddy by the sun and wind, and like most Petah Tikvaites, her shapeless woolen skirt and bulky cardigan sweater were at least five years behind those of the more fashionable Tel Avivians who lived just a few miles away.
Aunt Malka’s eyes swept over Raquela as she handed her a cup. “Everybody in Petah Tikva wants to meet you. And”—she turned to Carmi—“they can’t wait to welcome you home.”
“I’ve known some of them,” Carmi explained to Raquela, “since I was a child. I was always coming over here to stay with Aunt Malka and help out on the farm.”
All evening Aunt Malka’s neighbors came in a steady stream to welcome the returning hero, resplendent in his uniform, and to meet his girl friend. They were warm, friendly, some rambunctious, all unabashedly curious, openly taking her measure. Was she good enough for their war hero, their young and handsome Carmi?
Across the little salon, Raquela saw Carmi slap his thighs with laughter, joking with some of the villagers. She felt alien and alone.
The next day, Carmi and Raquela headed straight for the seashore. They walked along the beach, watching the foreign ships anchored in the Mediterranean; small tenders and motorboats plied between the ships and the shore.
“Aunt Malka approves of my choice, Raquela.” Carmi took her arm.
Raquela kicked a pebble on the promenade. The sense of alienation she had felt last night clung to her. Carmi was talking of the neighbors and she could hardly follow his voice. She saw him again in Petah Tikva, far more at home there than in her Jerusalem, reveling in the little farming town with its warmth, its liveliness, its sharp provincial curiosity, the neighbors pumping his hand, kissing him on the cheek, asking him about the war. She looked at his bronzed profile as they walked. There was so much to admire in Carmi—his good looks, his sensitivity, his readiness to lay down his life for the land and the people he loved.
Then what were the flaws that troubled her? She remembered his jealous outburst against Arik. So childish, she thought. Was that it; was it his immaturity as well as his jealousy that filled her with a growing apprehension?