by Amos Oz
The first sounds came unexpectedly, as if prematurely. Bruria had anticipated a thundering salvo, but the battle opened with tentative, stammering shots, cautious and very soft.
“The orchestra is tuning up. Soon it will start,” said Nahum.
“Relax,” said Bruria, “relax, little baby. You may put your head in my lap as long as you’re quiet and don’t talk and don’t cry any more. You baby. You don’t understand anything, anything at all. And what you say is all nonsense. They won’t bring Itcheh back to this camp at all. They’ll take him straight to the hospital, you won’t have a chance. The best surgeons are standing by at the hospital tonight. No sucking blood out of lungs through a rubber tube. They have an operating room, proper instruments, and they will save Itcheh a thousand times quicker and better than you could. You’re just a little boy. You don’t stand a chance. Stop making me laugh. Just your head, I said, keep still, you’re tickling me. Relax. Like that. Good boy. Quiet. Hush. And don’t touch me. Let me see your hand. You little fledgling. Maybe Itcheh will take you along on a mission some time, and you can save each other to your hearts’ content, because I’ve had enough now, I’ve had enough of all of you and I don’t care what happens, I just want the time to pass. Put your glasses on the table. Yes. Now I can touch you. Relax. I’ll sing you a lullaby. I can persuade Itcheh to take you on the next mission. He’ll even make a combat orderly out of you. When Itcheh recovers from the wound in his throat I’ll tell him that you were a good boy and you didn’t want him to die and you even wanted to save his life. I shall tell him that you didn’t say anything and you just lay quietly. Yes. Like this.”
The big damp stains on the ceiling were like shadowy monsters. At intervals a little mouse scuttled across the room, hid between the cracks in the tiles, and then appeared again from an unexpected corner. Bruria took off her sandal and threw it at the mouse; she missed. At that moment the ominous distant sounds were renewed. Long bursts of machine-gun fire split the silence. A mortar broke into a thick, angry cough. Sounds like thunder rolled in the darkness outside.
Nahum said: “I can breathe into his lungs quickly and violently, blow him up, burst him. I can pull out the rubber tube and he’ll turn blue again and suffocate. But I won’t do either of those things. I’ll save him if you’ll just stop insulting me. And don’t sing me to sleep, I mustn’t sleep now, I must be ready at any moment to run to the clinic and carry out the operation and save him for you. And don’t push me; I’m stronger than you. It will be a gift, and I’ve earned my reward by saving his life and bringing him back to you alive.”
Now the long-range artillery was heard. The enemy batteries on the mountain slopes started shelling the settlements close to the border and lighting up the sky with tracer shells. The demolition squads obliterated Dar an-Nashef house by house, while the spearhead units were still burning out obstinate pockets of resistance. The thunder of the guns tore apart Nahum’s pleading. “You’ll be the death of me,” said Bruria. She groaned and gave in. The young man streamed with sweat and his eyes rolled up. She stretched out her hands to her sides as if awaiting crucifixion and said, “At least get it over with quickly.” As it turned out, these words were not necessary.
The frantic sound of automatic fire was scattered in all directions. Dim, faraway salvos echoed in the background. A violent explosion drowned the bursts of machine-gun fire. Gradually the sounds of the battle settled into some secret rhythm; wave upon wave of humble, diffident queries, and thick, hoarse crashes in reply. The strident wail of strings swallowed by the dizzy boom of percussion. At last this rhythm was broken, too. A glittering cataract of blazing sound rose up and roared to the dark horizons. Then the final spasmodic bursts, until they, too, died away. Silence came and pieced together the fragments with gentle, merciful patience. The orderly left the room without another word and hurried to the clinic to prepare the operating instruments that were kept in a sterile pack for use in emergency. The stillness of the night descended on the plain. Soon the crickets and the jackal packs returned to their evil ways.
5
OUR COMMANDER said: “That was sharp and to the point. Just like in the training manuals. No problems. No obstacles. Neat as a Bach fugue. Run along now, girls, and open up a bottle of arak for the maestro.”
Parched, dirty, and overflowing with husky elation, Itcheh began shooting off joyful bursts of gunfire into the sky.
“Got it!” he roared. “Got mutton, potatoes, arak, everything we need, and no more Dar-bloody-Nashef! There’s not a cat left there! No cat, not even a dog! Not one son-of-a-bitch is left! Where’s that whore Bruria, where is she! And all the p-r-r-retty girls, where are they!”
He suddenly stopped roaring when the orderlies dragged the corpse of Yonich off the tailboard of the truck and carried it to the lighted clinic. The body was wrapped in a dirty blanket, but Nahum turned it up for a moment and saw that the eyes were wide open in hurt surprise as if they had made a fool of him again. Even his strange smile seemed to have softened. The smiling half of his face had not relaxed, but the other half had conformed to it. Nahum turned to Itcheh.
“What have you done to Yonich?”
“Why are you looking at me, why me?” cried Itcheh self-righteously. “His name was written on the first bullet. He was killed before things even got started. A volley missed me by a couple of yards, and he was standing in the way.” As he spoke, Itcheh began stripping off his belt and weapons and equipment, pulled off his crumpled shirt, and asked quietly, “Where is she, where is she hiding?”
“How should I know?”said Nahum.
“Then go and find her for me and bring her here. You’ve got five minutes,” commanded Itcheh hoarsely and wearily. “And before you do that, get me a drink of water.”
Nahum obeyed.
He poured a cup of water, handed it to Itcheh, waited till it was empty, refilled it, waited again, then rinsed the cup in the sink and ran off to look for Bruria.
Almost without hesitation he went to the place where the shadows were darkest, behind the storehouses on the hillside. There he saw Bruria, leaning against the wall. The buttons of her blouse were open, one breast protruded from her brassiere, and Rosenthal, the operations officer, was holding the nipple between two fingers and whispering playfully. But she was not laughing or moving. She stood there as if asleep on her feet or as if all was lost and there was no purpose left. This sight filled Nahum with a silent, heartrending anguish. He did not know why; he knew only that it was all a mistake, all of it, from beginning to end. He turned and went back to Itcheh.
“She isn’t here at all,” he lied. “She’s gone away. The two of them were seen going off in a jeep before you got back. She isn’t here.”
“OK,” said Itcheh very slowly. “I see. He’s taken her with him to Jerusalem. She could at least have waited to see if I’d been killed or not.”
Nahum trembled and said nothing.
“Come on, pal,” Itcheh went on, “come on. Let’s find ourselves a jeep. Have you got a cigarette you can spare? No? Never mind. We’ll go after them. How long ago were they seen going out? An hour? Half an hour? We’ll catch them this side of the Hartuv turn. One crisis after another tonight. Come on, get in, let’s go. Pity it’s so late. Rosenthal can start hanging a white flag on his jeep. What did you say? I thought you said something. Come on, let’s get after them. No time for coffee. Pity about that little guy. He just went out there and got himself killed. Pointless. Next time I’m not taking anyone who isn’t essential. The man who makes jokes about death is a bastard, the man who doesn’t is a bigger bastard. Say something. Well? Nothing to say? Talk. Say something. At least tell me what your name is. I’ve forgotten your name. I know you work in the store, but just now I’ve forgotten your name. I’m tired. Hey, look how fast we’re going. A hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty, at least. And we’re not even at top speed yet.”
The night road was deserted and cheerless. Far away, on the slopes of the eastern mountains, th
e night sky reflected the dying flames of the ruined enemy village. And in the irrigation channels of the orchards the black water flowed noiselessly and was swallowed up in the soil of the plain.
6
NAHUM LEANED back in the worn seat of the jeep and turned to look at Itcheh. He saw only a mane of hair and a thick beard. For a moment he was reminded of his Bible classes and the prophet Elijah, wild and jealous, slaughtering the prophets of Baal on the slopes of Carmel. He, too, figured in Nahum’s imagination, as a faceless giant, all beard and mane. Itcheh controlled the vehicle with sleepy violence, one hand on the wheel and the other resting wearily on his knee. His heavy body leaned forward, like that of a rider clutching at his horse’s neck. Is it really possible that he secretly suffers from bad eyesight? The jeep tore up the road, zigzagging, screeching, and whining. Stormy gusts of wind slapped their faces with blasts of intoxicating scents from the orchards.
One after another the lights of the villages along the Coastal Plain slipped away and were hidden, hastily fleeing behind the backs of the travelers. Here and there were civilians who had left their beds and gathered beneath a lamp in the main street of their sleepy settlements, exchanging speculations and waiting for the light of the approaching day and the early-morning news broadcast, to discover the meaning of the noises in the night and of the fire reflected in the sky. Itcheh and Nahum did not pause to give explanations, nor did they slacken their speed. Once, at a dark road junction, Itcheh braked sharply at the sight of a suspicious figure standing at the roadside, wrapped in an overcoat or a blanket, as if lying in wait. Itcheh picked up the submachine gun that lay at Nahum’s feet and swung the muzzle toward the figure. “What’s up?” he demanded. The headlamps picked out a young man, a rabbinical student, dressed all in black. Only his face and his socks were white. The student wore spectacles and looked helpless. He gabbled something in Yiddish, and Nahum was surprised to hear Itcheh answer him in Yiddish, patiently and quietly. Then the man blessed them and they went on their way. The jeep sprang into motion, raced across the curve of the road and onward, to the edge of the incline, toward the hills of Jerusalem.
They met no one else that night.
Itcheh did not speak, and Nahum asked no questions. Quiet joy and secret longing filled his heart. He knew the truth and Itcheh did not. Itcheh was driving the jeep like a madman and he was driving Itcheh. The road began to twist. The willing jeep attacked the curves furiously, with squeals of burning hatred. Nahum asked softly:
“What kind of a man are you, Itcheh, what are you really made of?”
The sharp wind swallowed his words. Itcheh must have heard something else, for he answered a quite different question:
“From Rumania. I was born in a place very near Bucharest. You could even say it was a suburb of Bucharest. In the war we escaped to Russia and got split up there. Some died, some disappeared, and a few went back afterward to Rumania. My little sister and I traveled across Poland and Austria to northern Italy, and then Youth Aliya came and took us from there to Israel, to the young people’s training farm run by the religious movement. We grew up there. There are still one or two of the family living somewhere in Russia, but I’ve no idea where. Not that it matters to me now.”
“I suppose you’ll be a professional soldier,” said Nahum. “In ten years you’ll be a colonel at least. And then a great general.”
Itcheh glanced at the orderly in surprise.
“Not likely! In another year or so I shall be discharged. I’m saving up to buy a share in the bus cooperative, and I’ve got a good chance of playing center-forward for Petah-Tikva. Not now. Some time. I’ve still got a lot to learn. It may be there’ll be professional soccer in this country one day, and then I’ll be in the pink. I’ll marry off my sister and live like a human being at last.”
“And you haven’t lived like a human being up to now?”
“Like a dog,” said Itcheh with weary anger.
“Tell me, what were you saying in Yiddish to that guy?”
“I asked him what the matter was. He said he’d heard shots and was scared. I told him the Arabs should be scared, these days it isn’t the Jews who need to be scared of gunfire at night. And I took half a pack of cigarettes off him in exchange for my sermon. Do you want one? No? We’ll catch them this side of Castel and take care of that Rosenthal once and for all. We’ll take Bruria with us to Jerusalem. Do you know Jerusalem? Will we find a cafe open before morning?”
“It’s a dead city,” said Nahum. “Everything’s dead in Jerusalem at night. In the daytime, too, for that matter. Anyway, we won’t catch them at Castel or anywhere else if we don’t go faster. A lot faster. Rosenthal will take her to his house and straight into his bed, and we’ll be standing like a pair of idiots in the dark in the middle of Jerusalem, not knowing which way to go. We’ll look like Laurel and Hardy! So step on it, Itcheh, faster, fast as you can, step on it!”
Itcheh hit the accelerator furiously. The engine gathered up its last reserves of strength. The speed intensified, sullen, brooding, whining, roaring. And Nahum was filled with dread and longing. He knew where Bruria was now, and where the bastard Rosenthal was, and Itcheh did not know. He was making the mighty Itcheh race along the road in the night on a fool’s errand, and Itcheh did not know. Even now he was savoring the scent of her skin, the scent of strong plain soap, and the taste of her fingers on his neck, and Itcheh did not know. He put his hand into the pocket of his shirt and fingered the instruments, the sterilized lancet, the bandages, the vial of morphine, the rubber tube, all that would be necessary for an emergency operation when the jeep plunged into a crevice at the side of the mountain road. This, too, was something Itcheh did not know and could not know. Here at his right hand sat the man who would save his life in a little while. A grim and demanding assignment, which Nahum would fulfill, to perfection. An unknown orderly has performed an operation at night by flashlight and has saved the life of a national hero. Resourcefulness. Dedication. Cool nerves. Comradeship. Expertise. Also—in a whisper, a movement of the lips without sound—love, too.
Then one of the headlights suddenly went out: it flickered a few times, hesitated, gave in, and went dark. Still the jeep galloped eastward by the light of one blazing Cyclops’ eye that stunned the shadows in the hills. Like a phantom the jeep raced on, spurred to ever greater efforts at Itcheh’s hands; he was hunched over the wheel, biting his lips and ramming the accelerator down to the floor hard. He will be seriously injured, Bruria, critically injured, but I won’t let him die. I’ll operate and I’ll bandage him with devotion, and I’ll disregard my own injuries. You will owe his life to me, and I shall go away humbly. Itcheh is just an ignorant, overgrown bear cub: he knows nothing, understands nothing. Listen: he’s started humming to himself; he has no idea what’s going to happen to him in a moment.
Perhaps Itcheh remembered the pale student whom they had met on the way up from the plain and his Yiddish entreaties. Perhaps he remembered other places and other times. He was intoning a melancholy song to himself:
“Our Father, our King, have mercy and hear us,
For we can do no-o-thing.
Show us ki-indness and grace,
And sa-ave u-us . . .”
“Amen,” whispered Nahum Hirsch fervently. And his eyes filled with tears.
Near the Shaar-Hagay junction, where the Jerusalem road touches enemy territory in the Latrun salient, the travelers were struck by a blast of cold air: the air of Jerusalem, chilling and full of the fragrance of pine. The engine began to groan, coughed hoarsely a few times, spluttered, and fell silent, silent as the lifeless things of which the night is full.
7
ITCHEH ROSE from his seat, heavy and weary, and opened the hood. Nahum took out the pocket light that was to have been used for the emergency operation and trained it on the interior of the engine. He watched Itcheh grappling with the sparkplugs, blindly pulling and pushing, angrily thumping the metal panels with his fist, tightening a screw with strong f
ingernails, tugging at wires mercilessly, perhaps aimlessly. This only added to the insolence of the engine. Suddenly, without warning, the other headlight gave out, and the machine went dead. Itcheh snatched the torch from Nahum and hurled it with a wild gesture into the rocks at the side of the road.
“Screw everything,” he said.
Nahum nodded his head as if to say: Yes, of course, absolutely. But now total darkness had descended on them, and Itcheh could not have seen this movement. Nahum used up match after flickering match. With the last match they both lit cigarettes from the pack that Itcheh had taken from the student on the way.
First Itcheh cursed the engine, then Nahum, Bruria, women in general, heaven and earth. Most of the curses were Russian and ruthless, some were Arabic. Itcheh cursed the Arabs, too, long and hard, Finally he cursed himself. Then he fell silent. His voice was hoarse from all the shouting he had done before the raid, during the battle, and after the return to camp. Now all he could manage was a pathetic, desperate croak. He settled himself on the hood of the dead jeep like a hairy mountain. And he lay there without sound or movement.
Then, when the eyes of both men had begun to adjust a little to the clinging darkness, Itcheh picked out a dark, brooding mass across the border near Latrun: the dim, straggling profile of the Trappist monastery, beyond the ceasefire line, on enemy soil.