Raquela

by Ruth Gruber

  “Are you happy?” Raquela asked.

  “Sometimes I still have nightmares. But I wake up. Dov is here. Chanan is here. I’m in Beersheba, building the new state. And you ask—am I happy. Look at me. Can’t you see it? I only wish you should have the same happiness.”

  Raquela walked toward Sarah and took her hand. “Thank you, for this night.”

  Sarah smiled. “Come back tomorrow for lunch. Arik likes my chicken. He’s a wonderful doctor, Raquela. We have to take good care of him,” she said slyly. “But I’m sure you know.”

  Arm in arm, Raquela and Arik strolled out of the hospital courtyard and through the gate. “Where would you like to walk?” he asked. “To Cassit and have coffee? Or to the desert?”

  “Is the desert safe?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then let’s walk there.”

  A full moon rode across the sky, lighting the sand as if it were a calm sea.

  “I saw you in a whole different light, Arik,” she said, kicking the sand with her sandals. “I never saw you before—the way you were with Chanan.”

  “I love that baby—as if he were my own.”

  “Arik—what about us?”

  He stopped walking. He bent to pick a cactus flower.

  “For you, my love.”

  Raquela slipped the flower into a buttonhole in her dress.

  “You haven’t answered me. What about us, Arik?”

  He put his arms around her, held her tightly, pressing his lips against hers. “I want you, dearest,” he whispered. “There’s nothing in the world I want more.”

  “I want you too, Arik,” she whispered.

  She felt his strength against her body. Silently, their arms around each other’s waists, they walked back to the hospital courtyard and into the cottage.

  In her room the cactus flower fell to the ground as he unbuttoned her dress.

  TWENTY-TWO

  NOVEMBER 1949

  The next morning was Shabbat.

  They woke in Raquela’s bedroom, dressed, walked slowly out of the empty cottage, breakfasted across the road, strolled back to the now-friendly desert, watched a bird wheeling in the sky, lunched with Dov and Sarah, played with little Chanan, and returned to the cottage, to seek and find each other.

  Early Sunday morning, Arik went off to supervise the reconstruction while Raquela entered the maternity building; the supplies she had ordered were arriving almost daily.

  A few minutes later he looked in on her and, with no one around, caught her in his arms and kissed her.

  “Arik,” she said, laughing, “do you realize you’re slowing the march of progress.”

  “Any objections? Are you getting tired of me already?”

  “Arik! Never!”

  They held each other tightly; Raquela felt a circle of joy weld them together.

  “I’d better leave now,” Arik said finally, “but I’ll be back soon. I love you.”

  She walked around the little building, singing to herself as she worked.

  He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.

  She unwrapped the heavy brown paper on the brand-new delivery table and ran her hand over the smooth white leather.

  And I love him. Oh, God, I love him.

  She unpacked a carton of medicine bottles, brown glass bottles whose labels fell off as soon as she lifted them out of the box. She borrowed a thin brush and white paint from one of Dov’s workmen, and in fine English letters she painted on the bottles ASPIRIN…PENICILLIN…IODINE…SILVER NITRATE…SECONAL…

  He’s the wisest, kindest, gentlest human being. And the tenderest.

  He returned, and kissed her. Her body yearned for him.

  “Tonight we’ll be in my room,” he said.

  Swiftly the hospital was taking shape. Target date for the opening was December 9, 1949.

  The courtyard was cleaned up, with a little area of cactus and desert flowers and palm trees landscaped to give shade. The scattered buildings began to merge into a hospital complex, as Dov Volotzky’s men fixed broken windows, installed plumbing, and set up the medical equipment.

  Most of the laborers were newcomers, Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

  Refugees.

  The terrible aftermath of every war. After World War II more than forty million people had become refugees: Hungarians, Germans, Indians, Pakistanis—the list went on.

  The Arab-refugee flight began with the winter war, in November 1947, after the partition vote. The world, watching the voting at the United Nations, saw the Jews accept partition and the Arabs reject it.

  There was no question in anyone’s mind, as they watched the Arabs march out of the UN, declaring war, that if the Arabs were to win that war—as everyone expected—the Jews would be refugees.

  The secretary general of the Arab League described the Arab plan: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.”

  In Haifa the Jewish mayor pleaded with the Arabs to remain in Haifa, to live peacefully with the Jews. The Jewish leaders went down to the boats on which Arabs were fleeing to Lebanon and Syria, begging their Arab friends not to uproot themselves.

  Some of the Arabs hesitated. They sent word to the mufti and to the neighboring Arab states: what should we do?

  The answer came back: leave immediately, soon you will return, we will drive every Jew into the sea, we will lead you back with our victorious Arab armies.

  The British superintendent of police, A. J. Bidmead, wrote to his government, in a confidential document, “Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay…[but] Arab leaders reiterated their determination to evacuate the entire Arab population.”

  So the Arabs fled, believing their leaders’ promises.

  Some fled in panic; some ran, as innocent people always run, from shelling and war. Some villages were demolished, among them, Deir Yassin, the hostile Arab village whose men had invaded Bet Hakerem in 1929, when Raquela and all of Bet Hakerem had taken refuge in the Yellin Seminar, and which had been attacked by the Irgun during the 1948 war.

  In the wake of the defeat of the Arab armies, the trickle of Arab refugees turned into a flood tide. By the time Ralph Bunche began holding his face-to-face armistice negotiations, six hundred thousand Arabs had fled to the neighboring states, to the West Bank, and to the Gaza Strip.

  At the same time, six hundred thousands Jews who had been living in Arab states began their refugee trek.

  It was a mirror image: Arab refugees fleeing war-torn Israel, into Arab lands; Jewish refugees fleeing Arab lands, into Israel.

  At the same time, more refugees fled from Europe to Israel, from countries in Eastern and Central Europe where anti-Semitism was a way of life.

  The mirror image continued. The Arab refugees were housed in dismal camps, in tent cities in Arab lands.

  The Jewish refugees were housed in dismal camps, in tent cities in Israel.

  But there the mirror image ended.

  The Arab refugees became the responsibility of the world. The UN, largely with dollars from the United States, fed and housed and educated the Arab refugees.

  The Jewish refugees became the responsibility only of Israel—with help from Jews abroad.

  The Arab refugees were kept inside the camps in misery and squalor.

  Israel closed down its camps and moved the people out. They built transit neighborhoods—mabaroth. These transit neighborhoods then gave way to new development towns.

  And of all the development towns, Beersheba was the most important.

  Mrs. Fanny Yassky led the delegation to the opening of the Haim Yassky Hadassah Hospital for the Negev.

  Political dignitaries, doctors, and nurses journeyed from Jerusalem; Hadassah leaders who had raised funds in America flew across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to attend.

  They listened to brief speeches; they sipped soft drinks under the desert trees; they toured the buildin
gs, admiring the equipment that had come from Israel and from the United States.

  Raquela led them through Maternity, where the beds were covered with the soft white sheets they’d sent.

  Soon the operating theater was as busy as a big-city hospital’s. Truck drivers were now hauling concrete and food down the Negev road to Eilat. That ancient harbor on the Red Sea, where King Solomon had welcomed the queen of Sheba to his kingdom, was to be opened, to become the window to Asia and Africa. The one road through the desert and the canyons of the Negev was 143 miles of dirt and gravel from Jerusalem, 212 miles from Tel Aviv.

  Struggling to open the desert, the truck drivers often drove twelve hours or more each way over this monotonous terrain. Exhausted, they sometimes fell asleep at the wheel, caromed off the road, and overturned. Other drivers, finding them, would rush them to the new Beersheba hospital and carry them up a ramp into the surgery building.

  Even in December, the days were hot. Sweat poured down the faces of the doctors and nurses when they worked during the day. Nights were freezing, and a small kerosene stove heated the operating room where the surgeons tried to mend the limbs and save the lives of the weary drivers.

  Ben-Gurion had expressly asked Hadassah to open this hospital for the Bedouin Arabs of the Negev as well as for the Jews. But the Bedouins of this region had never seen a hospital before. For weeks, no Bedouins came.

  Finally, the first Bedouin sheikh arrived. Behind him came four wives, twelve children, two camels, and a flock of goats. He carried an almost lifeless young boy.

  At the entrance gate he told the guard, “My son Abdullah is sick in the stomach. He cannot eat. No food stays in him. Can your medicine make him better?”

  The guard escorted the sheikh and his entourage to the courtyard. The family and the animals bedded themselves under a palm tree while the sheikh and his young son entered the pediatrics building, where Dr. Pearl Ketcher was waiting.

  For several days, the little boy hovered between life and death. The sheikh’s family never moved; they ate and slept in the courtyard.

  Abdullah was saved.

  Word about the Jewish miracle doctors spread among the Bedouins. Soon more Bedouin sheikhs arrived with their families and their livestock.

  The sheikhs sought help for themselves and their sons, but never for their wives or their daughters. No doctor, male or female, could examine their womenfolk.

  Arik’s obstetrics clinic and Raquela’s delivery room held Jewish women patients, but no Arabs.

  Raquela was frustrated. She left her ward and walked through the courtyard, past a family of Bedouins, to see Arik. He was bending over newly arrived gynecological instruments like a jeweler examining precious stones.

  “Arik,” she said, “the courtyard is filled with pregnant Bedouin women. They must have the highest birth rate in the country.”

  “And the highest infant mortality,” he added.

  “If Beersheba is to be Ben-Gurion’s model for Bedouin Arabs and Jews living together, we ought to be saving those babies.”

  He jumped up. “Maybe we can do something to save them.”

  The next morning they set off in a car with a young Moroccan Jew whose family had come from the mellah—the ghetto—of Casablanca. Ami, a tall thin young man with black hair and tawny skin, had worked in the GI camps, shining the boots of the soldiers stationed in Casablanca. Bright and quick-witted, he had learned English well enough for Arik to hire him as an interpreter for the Arab patients.

  They drove deep into the desert until they reached a small compound of black goatskin tents. A gray-bearded sheikh in a long black gown and checkered keffiyeh received them. He was the sheikh whose young son Dr. Ketcher had saved.

  “Welcome to our humble tent,” the sheikh greeted them.

  Arik introduced Raquela and Ami. The sheikh bowed.

  Raquela saw several women and young girls peeping out of one of the tents, hiding behind the flap lest the men see them.

  The sheikh led the way into the largest tent filled with pillows propped on the ground against the tent walls. Raquela, Arik, and Ami sat on pillows on one side; the sheikh sat alone, majestic, on the other.

  “Your family is well, I hope,” Arik said.

  “Allah be praised. We are well.”

  An older son who closely resembled his father entered the dark tent carrying a tray of demitasse cups with Turkish coffee.

  Raquela sipped slowly, listening to the polite words in the first part of the ritual.

  Now the second stage began. The son collected the coffee cups and returned a few minutes later with glasses of hot tea.

  “And your little son, Abdullah?” Arik asked. “How is he?”

  Ami translated.

  The sheikh stroked his beard and looked searchingly at Arik. “Ah, that lady doctor. She made the devil go out of Abdullah.”

  Raquela watched the sheikh’s face closely as Ami translated his words.

  “At first I was afraid to trust my little son to a woman. Every Friday I took him to the dervish. He used his powers. He put his hand on Abdullah’s back and pushed and pushed and said, ‘The devil is going out. The devil is leaving you.’ But nothing happened. He pushed again. ‘The devil is going out of your fingernails. The devil is going out of your toes.’ But the devil went out in your hospital.”

  Arik nodded solemnly.

  The third stage of the ritual was to begin. The tea glasses were gathered up, and the son returned with a fresh round of Turkish coffee in demitasse cups.

  This was the moment Arik had chosen to launch his plan.

  “Sitting here beside me in your tent, sir,” Arik said, waiting for Ami to translate phrase by phrase, “sitting here is the best midwife I know. She has brought hundreds of babies into the world. I am hoping you will allow her to deliver your next child.”

  The sheikh focused his dark eyes upon Arik.

  “You are asking me to send one of my wives to her. Why is your midwife better than ours?”

  Raquela leaned forward from her pillow and spoke for the first time.

  “I am sure I am not better than your midwives.”

  The sheikh sat impassively as Ami translated. Then he looked at her. “Why should I let my wife go to have a child in your hospital? Why is it better than my tent?”

  “There’s no reason why most women can’t have their babies at home, provided there are no complications.” Raquela was talking urgently. “If there are complications, a few minutes can mean the difference between life or death. In the hospital, if a baby or the mother is in trouble, they can be saved. There’s a doctor. There’s equipment. At least we have a fighting chance. At home, the baby can die and the mother can die.”

  She stopped. She had not meant to talk so long.

  The sheikh lit his narghila. The desert silence filtered into the black goatskin tent.

  Arik played his trump card.

  “The government of Israel is deeply concerned that too many babies and too many mothers die in childbirth.”

  The sheikh puffed his water pipe, listening. Arik went on. “So they’ve voted to present every mother who gives birth in a hospital with a gift of money.”

  The sheikh pulled the pipe out of his lips. “Arabs, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hm.”

  “It’s a way of showing how strongly our government feels about saving Arab and Jewish lives.”

  The sheikh again blew smoke into the air. “I must give this some thought.”

  Overnight, it seemed to Raquela, concrete apartment houses rose from the sand. The town encroached upon the desert. New streets, new roads, new neighborhoods, new factories. A twentieth-century symphony of bulldozers and tractors and steam shovels pierced the desert air.

  Each day new immigrants arrived—tailors from Tunisia, shoemakers from Algeria, shopkeepers from Morocco, cave dwellers from Libya, tradesmen from Egypt.

  Great rivers of Jews began to pour home into the sea that was Israel.
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  From Yemen alone, fifty thousand came on the “eagles’ wings” that Isaiah had prophesied; they were American planes.

  Early in 1950 the entire Jewish community of Iraq—120,000 men, women, and children—fled from the hostile Arab land, still officially at war. Iraq had refused to sign an armistice agreement; now she ordered the Jews to get out within a year or be trapped forever. Among the refugees were financiers, doctors, railroad and telegraph workers. They were forced to leave everything they owned—property, jewelry, heirlooms—and permitted to take out only one suitcase of clothes. Even the rings on their fingers were torn off by Arab guards in the Baghdad airport.

  From Romania, legal ships brought legal refugees on legal routes from the Black Sea to Haifa—the same route the Pan York and the Pan Crescent had followed on their historic “illegal” voyage.

  Eighty thousand came from Romania. Others came from Hungary. From Czechoslovakia. From Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

  Each exodus was the biblical Exodus—out of Egypt, into the Promised Land—retold.

  The Bible had said, “Gather yourselves together.” Now, at last, they were being ingathered.

  After the extermination of six million Jews, every life was valuable.

  Israel became a pressure cooker, absorbing them all—Jews from Arab lands; Jews from the Western world; Sabras, like Raquela; and the two hundred thousand Arabs who had remained in Israel.

  On a hot May morning the Bedouin family Raquela and Arik had visited in the desert made their way into the hospital courtyard. The sheikh settled three wives, a bevy of children, and an assortment of livestock in a circle beneath a palm tree and led his youngest wife, heavily veiled, into the maternity building.

  Raquela greeted the sheikh and his young wife, motioned them to chairs, and called out, “Monique, can you come here.”

  A young woman in her late teens—her pink cheeks, brown hair and white starched apron all freshly scrubbed—entered the little admission office. Monique was part of the Algerian exodus of Jews. Arabic had been her mother tongue, and at the Alliance Israelite school in Algiers she had learned French and Hebrew; now she was studying to be a nurses aide.