by Assaf Gavron
Every week for two hours I immersed myself in this world. I listened to intimate confessions and cried along with my fellow therapees, and they cried along with me. Memories came back to me with force and clarity, though somewhat mixed up with each other. Ilan said that I was ‘concurrently experiencing three different phases of post-trauma’: the Event Phase for the Café Europa attack, the Immediate Reaction Phase for Shaar Hagai and the Early Reaction Phase for the Little No. 5. He said there weren’t many cases like mine. Like everyone else, Ilan had seen me on Noah’s Ark, something which I felt bothered him, though he never said anything. Maybe my status as a famous survivor didn’t sit well with my being a newcomer to the group. But all the others were fascinated. I felt that they were proud of me, that I somehow represented them. They liked to walk with me in the hospital corridors, where strangers would recognise me and shake my hand and offer condolences. Once I was walking with Dani when a member of the Knesset visiting the injured stopped us and shook our hands. He stank of aftershave and told a lousy joke about a member of Hamas arriving at the gates of heaven and getting the good news and the bad news.
The way the group therapy worked was you had to repeat your story every session to try to bring a little more to the surface. You’d keep telling it and you’d reach a new perspective, that was the idea. We heard the same stories again and again, and we were happy to. From time to time Ilan would interrupt us and ask a question which everyone would answer briefly.
‘What does an explosion sound like?’
‘A little “puck”,’ said Noa.
‘A big “boom”,’ said Dani.
‘“Vooomm”, like in Lebanon, like a mine,’ said bearded Uri, or Roy–I always mixed them up.
‘Nothing,’ Roy said, or Uri. ‘Just pain in the ears. And the air moving. I felt it and I lifted my head.’
‘The sound of blood hitting a wall.’
‘Handclaps, or fireworks,’ said Yulia of the Café Europa.
I said: ‘Shattering glass, and a humming silence like you get in an elevator…’
‘What are we talking about?’ said Uzi Bracha. ‘Why do we need to sit here and tell each other what an explosion sounds like?’
No one answered. Ilan said, ‘Did I tell you about the mice?’ Without waiting for a reply, since he knew he already had, he went on:
‘They were testing the reactions of laboratory mice to electric shocks. One mouse which had been given an electric shock was released from its cage into a safer environment. It learned its lesson and never returned to the place where it was hurt. A second mouse was given the same shock but in a closed environment. It became ill, lost its hair and developed an ulcer. Now, two mice in a closed cage were given shocks but did not become sick. Because they had each other. They were stuck, like the second mouse, in a dangerous place without an escape route but they were not alone. This is what we are doing here. Every one of us is stuck in a place he can’t escape from at this stage. But we have each other.’
‘And we’re not losing our hair,’ I said. Ilan gave me a sour look and didn’t respond. We all sat quietly, listening to Yulia’s crying.
‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved?’ said Dani.
‘Well, sort of,’ he replied, stroking his goatee.
Every Wednesday I also took the lift up to the ward on the eighth floor to sit with Shuli. I came to know her for longer, and better, in a coma than I’d known her awake. Her face was unchanged and still beautiful, except that her eyes had lost all their depth. There were tubes connected to her mouth and arm, tubes disappearing under the sheet into the heart of her. The machines fed her, made her blood flow, breathed for her. The one thing they couldn’t give her was sleep.
As the weeks passed I learned to recognise Shuli’s mood by subtle changes to the air in the room. One time, when I was sitting alone next to her telling her something, she blinked, and I felt it was for me.
On her birthday I brought her flowers. ‘Happy birthday,’ I said. There were other flowers and presents beside the bed. ‘In this country, every birthday you celebrate is an achievement,’ I said. ‘And a marriage? Something to be proud of even if it didn’t last. And a kid–you’ve really got it made. You’ve created a dynasty. I read in the paper that we’re making a lot of babies here. You know, relatively.’ She didn’t blink. I would describe the view to her, the best view in the hospital, looking down over wooded hills and valleys, and when I was there on my own, I would raise the bottom of the sheet and touch the crocodile on her ankle. It was my secret sign to her–our sign. One warmer evening I arrived to find the windows open and a battered-looking pigeon fluttering around the room, like a synapse firing in a brain. It saw me and took off. Maybe that’s a sign, I thought. Or maybe it’s just a pigeon.
Her boss came often–Alon, the chef from the King David, sometimes accompanied by other chefs from the hotel. He told me she had talent. He’d known Guetta too: ‘a lovely guy’. Shuli’s father and sister came every day, always depressed, crying, and praying for a miracle. I heard Shuli’s father tell Alon that it was insensitive to bring Arabs along, and rather than reply Alon and Osama left the room. ‘I should have said something. I got plenty of things I could’ve said,’ he told me in the corridor. ‘I’m not a fucking lefty but come on. A little respect for human beings.’ Shuli’s bed became a meeting point. I followed the soap opera of her aunt’s health, advised the aunt’s partner on the telecoms market and recommended a travel agent to him, and, in return, was recommended an accountant. Guetta’s father always asked me about what Giora had been up to in Tel Aviv on the morning of his death, and I always replied that I was sorry but I didn’t know. He asked me to write something for a commemorative booklet and I promised to think about it. I even brought Duchi once, after our ‘Who the hell is this Shuli?’ argument.
And all the time the thing that connected us lay there above us all, silent, lonely, machine-bound, lifeless yet alive, waiting for something to change. And then something did change.
The thing I enjoyed most about those Wednesdays was the journey home. An intercity bus ride at night has a charm of its own. It’s uninterrupted thinking time. The whole day seems to sink through you and dissolve in the blood. People talk, but not so much and not so loudly–out of deference to the darkness, perhaps; the steady hum of the engine and the rhythm of the passing lights, the lights of the villages off in the night, the bluish light of the bus’s interior. On my night rides I laid my forehead against the window and let myself breathe deeply and relax. It was on the bus, quietly, that I really examined myself. That was where the memories returned. It was on the night buses that carried me back from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv that I began to accept myself as I was, and began to think about who I was going to be.
26
‘You know something, Fahmi? I think you may be the perfect man. You never shout at me, never disappear, never turn up smelling of vodka and cigarettes and other women. Even Mama would like you. Let’s see…physiotherapy in an hour, then a wash. Massage first. You had a busy day yesterday. Both Lulu and Rana. Very cute, Fahmi. Still not talking to you, but I saw her kissing your forehead.’
Bilahl believed that he could carry out what everybody else only talked about: the mother of all operations. After his visit to Gaza his confidence had gone through the roof. It was power he was feeling.
He wanted to talk to me about his ideas.
Ben-Gurion International Airport. Since the Fatah operation in the seventies no one had managed to get near it. The passenger lounge was a good target. An aircraft was a possibility, either in the air or on the ground. Huge impact. Great damage to the economy. The feeling that their escape routes had been blocked off, that running to Mummy in America was not so easy. The feeling that they were locked up in here with us.
Second option, Eilat airport. A little far but the impact would still be considerable. A small airport but relatively light security. Near the city centre and the hotels. Less guarded. Several options to get there: from
the southern part of the West Bank; from the Gaza strip via Egypt, along the border or from Sinai; through Saudi Arabia or Aqaba, in a commando boat. Eilat was vulnerable.
I said, ‘It’s not a coincidence that Eilat’s hardly been targeted yet: it’s not Palestine.’
‘New York and Munich aren’t Palestine either.’
‘Right. But you’re talking about the mother of all…’
Third option, a big hotel in Jerusalem. ‘Like the Jewish operation against the British in the King David. They drove a car in with two hundred and fifty kilos of explosives. This is what I’m talking about. Something that will go down in the history books.’
Fourth option: a symbol. David’s Tower.
‘Oh, come on: David’s Tower?’
Fifth option: the Knesset. ‘Get people with weapons inside with the caterers or cleaners, in trucks through the back gate. You get someone to work there for a few months.’
‘It’s not easy,’ I said.
‘I didn’t say it was easy.’ He looked up with irritation. ‘We will keep thinking. I’m happy to hear more ideas. Anyway, you’re to start working on the explosives. Start gathering quantities. Slowly.’
‘How are the muscles responding, Doctor?’
‘Well, you know. He’s not moving them like us. You should be giving him more massages every day, here, and here, like this…’
‘I know–I’ve already increased the number of deep massages. He gets more than anyone, longer than anyone…’
‘And always check underneath, because that’s how he usually lies…’
‘I do. I’m determined that he won’t get any pressure sores. I’ve been working on reducing these inflammations, too. Here, help me turn him over, Doctor…’
‘I’m impressed, Svetlana…’
‘Careful with the tubes now…One for air, and another for urine. He’s lucky we treat him so well. Nobody else gets such personal treatment, Doctor.’
Outside, the armoured personnel carriers rolled by, leading columns of soldiers like ducks leading trails of their young. We’d grown used to them and, as in the zoo when the animals get to know each other, we feared them less. Kids were already throwing stones at them, almost affectionately, as it were.
I poured Coke into a couple of tall Coca-Cola glasses I got free with a box of six bottles and Bilahl lifted his glass dubiously, the drink sizzling with a thousand tiny explosions beneath his lips. I didn’t like his attitude. I didn’t know what they’d told him in Gaza but I’d seen the money they’d given him. Two thousand in cash. Two grand, and even a glass of Coke was somehow impure and decadent. We should have enjoyed it more, should have realised that the tap could have been turned off any time. But it’s easy to say that in hindsight.
I drank Coke and ate sunflower seeds and watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The Weakest Link and The Mission. A contestant on The Mission managed to reach the Golden Question, giving himself a chance to double the five million Lebanese lira he’d already won.
The Golden Question was this:
‘Last week members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades carried out an attack on a bus on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. In what year did Palestinian freedom fighters carry out similar attacks against Jewish buses on the same road?’
‘1978,’ said the contestant, and my smile disappeared. Up in heaven I guess Grandfather Fahmi’s did too. Ihab the host stared at the contestant for a few seconds before telling him he’d just blown five million lira. He recounted the real story of the Beit-Machsir fighters. When Bilahl came back I told him and he switched the set off and snapped that I needed less TV and more mosque in my life. I said nothing. I just looked levelly at my brother and leaned back on the sofa, where Rana and I had done something he never had.
27
I tried to return to my previous life, and to two things in particular–Duchi and Time’s Arrow. Duchi was sweet, considerate and kind, or tried to be. Time’s Arrow also welcomed me back with open arms. They equipped themselves with plenty of patience and understanding and were obviously giving me as much time as I needed. Jimmy said he was sure I’d organised everything to get out of the Brussels trip. Little by little was the phrase I kept hearing–at work, on Wednesdays in therapy and beside Shuli’s bed–little by little.
It wasn’t easy. In retrospect, it was impossible. For a start, in my previous life I used to sleep. In this one I didn’t. I would wake long before dawn, exhausted by my own dreams and, hating the silence, wander through the rooms or sit in front of the television’s fuzzy, comforting light. In order to pass the time I started smoking, which made me grumpy and nauseous. Duchi tried to talk to me but I pushed her away, telling her to go back to bed because she couldn’t understand. Several times I called Uzi Bracha, who was always awake in the small hours, but it didn’t help. After a few weeks the doctor suggested some sleeping pills called Zopiclon, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t but always left me apathetic and addled. Sleepless nights led to bad days, and vice versa. It was a vicious circle. I had a permanent headache, my nerves were frazzled, my thoughts were racing and my body was running on empty.
But now I was also…CrocAttack! Magnet of attention, symbol of resistance, vessel for other people’s ideas. New forces were taking control of my life and I couldn’t, or perhaps didn’t want to, avoid them. Here came the offers and the pressures, the strangers and the advisers…every day I was approached by people I’d never talked to who knew what I needed, or who needed to know what I thought. Could I lend them my voice, my support, my opinion? It didn’t matter to them that, in most cases, I had no opinion.
I got a call from Left and Right on IDF Radio, a kind of sub-Noah’s Ark, with people from the left and the right shouting at each other. ‘Eitan Enoch, what do you think about the decision to impose a curfew on the territories for the duration of the holiday season?’ ‘Mr Enoch, as someone who has personally experienced the intifada, could you please explain to my dear friend sitting in her air-conditioned studio in Tel Aviv the reality of terror?’ ‘Eitan Enoch, what do you think about a unilateral withdrawal?’ ‘About the planned construction of a Separation Barrier?’ ‘About the transfer of Jewish settlers?’ ‘About the two-state solution?’ They called two or three times a week and I don’t know why they bothered because I never had any answers. On the curfew, I said it was very hard to live like that and we should find ways to relax it. On terror attacks, I said we had to put an end to them and fight with all our might. On the wall, I said we should cause as little damage as possible. On unilateral withdrawal, I said only on the condition that security could be guaranteed. I said words which added up to sentences which grew into paragraphs but I wasn’t really saying anything whatsoever. I talked like a politician and said nothing at all and it seemed to go down fine with them, because they kept calling.
After a particularly pointless conversation on Left and Right one day, I received a phone call from Benzi Dikstein, spokesperson for the Communities Committee. I asked what the Communities Committee was. He said, ‘Exactly! That’s exactly our problem: no one’s heard of us. We’re a group of lobbyists who represent a few communities in Greater Israel opposed to the dismantling of settlements and the transfer of Jews.’
‘Ah, settlers.’
‘We prefer “inhabitants”,’ said Benzi. ‘Eitan, as someone well known, someone who’s experienced a lot and knows the reality intimately, we think you would be a tremendous asset to our cause.’ I burst out laughing. ‘Me?’ ‘But you were speaking against non-voluntary transfer on IDF Radio only a couple of minutes ago. By the way, do you know where the name Enoch comes from?’ ‘Uh…no. I keep meaning to go to the Diaspora Museum and check it out.’ ‘Well, it’s a corruption of Chanoch, the father of Methuselah, and they never managed to kill him either. Or not for a long time, anyway…’ He gave a couple of barks that must have been some kind of laughter.
One day Shmulik Kraus called. ‘Oh my God,’ I yelled to Duchi, ‘Shmulik Kraus!’ Duchi
came running and then stopped. ‘It won’t be him,’ she said, ‘it’ll be that lefty.’ I put my ear back to the phone. ‘…not Shmulik Kraus the singer, of course, I’m Shmulik Kraus from Stop the Occupation.’ ‘Oh,’ I said.
‘We really liked the things you said this morning,’ he continued, slipping from single into plural, ‘against this ridiculous curfew that our genius defence minister gave the residents of the West Bank for a holiday present, not the Jewish ones, of course’ (I couldn’t remember what I’d said, but I may possibly have called Mofaz a clown), ‘and we wanted to ask whether you would like to be one of the speakers in our demonstration this Saturday night in Rabin Square?’
I kept having conversations like this. Calls from the right, the left, the non-aligned, the Society against Violence in the Family, and one time–after I accidentally stepped in some dog shit on Ibn-Givriol Street while talking on my mobile to the radio and had broken off to curse dog-owners who didn’t clean up their dogs’ mess–from the Society for a Clean Tel Aviv, who turned out to be pro transfer of dogs.