A Promised Land?

by Alan Collins

  “Gawd, Jake, you look as though you couldn’t go three rounds with a revolving door. Digging’s not your style, is it?’’ she added sympathetically.

  Jacob replied with a weary smile. ‘‘I’m going home to sleep now, please don’t disturb me.’’

  ‘‘As the flower girl in that play we saw said: ‘Not bloody likely!’ ’’

  Jacob slouched off. As he lay down he tried to recall the name of the play. ‘‘Pygmalion, Pygmalion…was that it?’’ He fell deeply asleep.

  He awoke to the exploratory touch of little hands to his face. He propped one eye open to see, through the blur of half-sleep, Joshua sitting on the bed with Peg behind him.

  ‘‘No kisses and cuddles tonight, Yakov.’’

  She tucked Joshua under her arm and threw Jacob’s clothes to him. ‘‘Dress warmly, darling.’’ As she spoke she caught her breath. She had never used such an endearment to him before. In public, their love had thrived on a hardier diet of commonplace words they could hide behind so that their true feelings could be locked away from all but themselves.

  She took the baby and sat in a chair, watching Jacob. When he had dressed he took the rifle from a cupboard and with as much aplomb as he could muster, slung it over his shoulder. Their eyes met. Jacob was prepared for Peg to make some joke or even mock him. Instead, her eyes rapidly filled with tears. She put Joshua on the floor and held Jacob in a tight embrace. Then she released him, snatched up the child and was gone.

  With the rifle on his shoulder, he walked self-consciously up the hill toward the north tower. He followed the perimeter fence, using it as a guide now that night had fallen. The kibbutz electrician had not completed the lighting for the fence but had installed flood lamps in the towers. He thought he could see the spindly legs of the tower; he quickened his pace and was about to step into the small arc of light at its base when he felt a hard sharp prod in his back. He turned quickly and the rifle slid from his shoulder. He bent to pick it up. He felt a boot in his backside and then a slap on his shoulder.

  ‘‘Dark man in darkness — he hard to see — it good to be dark at night.’’

  Shimon’s white teeth were bared in a wide grin. He picked up the rifle and handed it to Jacob, then gestured courteously to him to go first up the ladder. Jacob was trembling; the last thing he needed at that moment was to climb the steel rungs to that small platform thirty feet up from safe ground. It was decided for him. Shimon was right behind him, prodding him with the sub-machine gun. Jacob reached the top and looked into the darkness. Avi had said to pay particular attention to the north-east. When Shimon joined him in the tower he unbuttoned his shirt and took out Abe Lewis’s compass. The compass needle swung wildly; Shimon watched over his shoulder, quite fascinated. This was to be Jacob’s first minor triumph over the self-sufficient Shimon. The needle steadied, he found the point of the compass and indicated the segment it covered. Shimon took it all very seriously, bringing the sub-machine gun to the ready and sighting it along the compass bearing. Jacob did the same. After a while their arms tired and they lowered the guns. That was the moment a bullet tore through the shoulder of Shimon’s jacket. The sub-machine gun fell from his hands as he dropped to his knees. Jacob watched in horror as the white quilted stuffing of the jacket was suffused to deep red. Then he picked up the sub-machine gun and fired a burst of shots in the direction they had been facing.

  Shimon shouted at him: ‘‘Put out light — quick — lie down — no shoot!’’

  Jacob was temporarily deafened by the gunfire; Shimon pointed to the switch then fainted. Jacob threw the platform into darkness. He stripped off his pullover and jacket and straightened Shimon who awoke with the pain of movement. Jacob then took off his shirt and in the dark tried to staunch the wound. After the initial spurt of blood there was only a slight oozing. Shimon’s arm lay at an odd angle to his body; Jacob decided to leave well alone. He knew the gunfire would bring help very quickly.

  The blood dried on his hands. He had made a wad of his shirt and had the sense not to move it once he had it in place over the wound. Shimon had his head on Jacob’s coat. The only word he had uttered since the lights went off was ‘‘fedayeen”, the name for Arab guerilla bands. Avi had used it when he had given the news of the six hundred Arabs who had crossed the Syrian border into what he now openly called Israel and the Arab world called Palestine. Shimon lay still and silent, his eyes wide open, the whites now showing traces of blood.

  They lay together on the cold platform like exhausted lovers frightened by what they had started. Jacob had no idea of the time; he had never owned a watch. He fought the tiredness of fear, moving only enough to ease cramp and give the least disturbance to Shimon.

  The moon rose and cast a silvery veil over the rough steel structure. Avi cursed it as it illumined his truck with the Bren gun in the turret and the six men crouched on its tray. It swayed up the perimeter track with only blackout lights showing. At the foot of the tower Avi called out to Shimon, waited a moment, then, reluctantly it seemed, called for Jacob.

  Shimon did not want to move. He called down in Hebrew, ‘‘Ken? (Yes?)’’

  ‘‘What has happened? We heard one shot then a whole lot.’’ Without waiting for an answer, the big man climbed the ladder. Three men from the truck jumped down and headed for the northern perimeter gate. Jacob watched them go through and start a systematic search of the fruit tree groves — the same groves that Peg had worked in.

  Avi’s massive head and shoulders appeared over the railing of the platform. He swung his body over, knelt down beside Shimon and whispered to him. He shone his torch on the wound, stood up and called to the men below. Jacob did not understand much of what Avi said but it produced rapid response. One man scaled the ladder; he carried a first-aid kit and went to work on Shimon. Avi ordered Jacob down to the ground. The other man, carrying rope and a stretcher, climbed to the platform. Waiting anxiously on the ground, Jacob remembered Peg saying to him back on the Athene: ‘‘as useless as tits on a bull!’’ He jumped when he heard distant shots. He looked up to the platform. Avi called out to him. ‘‘We shall lower him down on the stretcher. I will throw you a rope and you will use it to see that the stretcher is held away from the platform.’’

  The stretcher, secured in a rope sling, began a slow descent; Jacob guided it with his rope. The other man who had given first-aid climbed down at the same rate as the decending stretcher. High above, Avi fed out the rope until the stretcher touched the ground with the lightness of a floating feather. Then Avi rejoined them and almost single-handedly put the stretcher on the back of the truck. The first-aid man sat beside Shimon, who had been silent up till now. He called weakly for Jacob.

  ‘‘Yakov — you do good thing for me — I tell Pnina you brave.’’

  Avi blew on a whistle; he guided the shaken Jacob into the truck and climbed in beside him. After a while the other three men came out of the darkness and climbed aboard. The truck, driven with unnatural care, headed back to the lights of the kibbutz.

  It pulled up at the entrance to the children’s house. There was a four-bed ward attached where basic medical care could be given. Avi leapt out of the truck and with Jacob’s help lifted the stretcher and carried Shimon inside. The room had an air of efficiency about it. It was soon evident why: Peg, the double-certificated nurse, was undoubtedly in charge. As soon as the kibbutz heard the gunfire, she became the pivotal point for all first-aid decisions and actions. It was reassuring enough for her to see straight away that Jacob was not the body on the stretcher. From there on, she took no further notice of him, not even offering a greeting, so immersed was she in carrying out her duties. Her plump little figure seemed to grow in stature as she issued commands. Jacob stood at the back of the room watching with admiration as she skilfully removed Shimon’s blood-soaked shirt. She dropped it in a bucket and then, for the first time since his arrival, she flashed Jacob a smile. Then it was back to the task in hand.

  Jacob felt terribly tired. He
was glad Shimon would live. He had seen too much of death in his short life. His own mother, father and brother, Ruti’s dad, Joshua’s mum…he shuddered at the catalogue of mortality. He needed to see a renewal of life. He went next door to where the children slept. Joshua lay on his back, his little moon face glowing in the first light of dawn. Jacob stood over him. ‘‘Well, young fella, with your black hair and brown eyes, there’s no chance of you growing up to look like Pnina.’’ He bent down and kissed him. ‘‘Maybe I could pass for your dad,’’ he added wistfully. He shut the door behind him, stood for a moment outside the first-aid room and was rewarded by hearing Peg’s infectious laugh and Shimon’s voice, low but clear.

  He reached their hut and collapsed on the bed.

  * * *

  Kibbutz Jezreel was having one of its interminable committee meetings. One member, fed up with the time it took to get a decision, declared that the only thing they could agree on was to disagree. As Geula laughingly explained to Peg, ‘‘Where there are four Jews, straight away you have a president, two vice-presidents and the fourth wants to break away and start his own committee.’’

  The kibbutz committee was no different. The smaller the item, the longer it was debated. Shirley’s objection to being called ‘‘Sharon’’ took up nearly half the evening.

  Apart from farm matters and kibbutz defence, which was dealt with this evening with unusual speed, the committee went on to deal with a very delicate subject. It had received a request from Yakov and Pnina to be married on the kibbutz.

  Nothing had been said to either Jacob or Peg by kibbutz members about their relationship. Kibbutz Jezreel was founded on and nurtured in the best tradition of socialist beliefs. The common good was the goal and every thought and action was meant to bring it to fruition. The fact that Judaism and socialism could exist harmoniously was chiefly a tribute to the pragmatism of the former, which could, on most matters accommodate the dogma of socialism. Religious ritual on the kibbutz was, at best, selective; yet in their hearts, members had a deep feeling for their five and a half thousand years of recorded history.

  A rabbi was a rare visitor, his arrival usually connected with a circumcision, a wedding or a death. He was not required to conduct any of the many festivals in the Jewish calendar. Kibbutz members did this themselves with a joyousness not to be seen in a synagogue.

  There had been wide praise for Jacob and Peg for the way they had cared for Joshua. The kibbutz made every effort to trace the child’s family; sadly, it became more and more evident that Joshua was the last survivor of an entire family that had perished in the Holocaust. The committee had no difficulty in leaving Joshua in the loving care of Pnina Piper and Yakov Kaiser. But since the Partition of Palestine in November 1947 into the two entities of Israel and Palestine, a bureaucracy had been established. Now the religious pressure groups were looking disapprovingly at the laissez-faire attitudes of some kibbutzim to religious matters.

  Geula, looking around the table, could see the man from France who had arrived with his girlfriend some years ago; they were still unmarried. Uri was a poultry expert; his girlfriend Aviva was rarely seen without a soldering iron in her hand, patching up the kibbutz’s electrical bits.

  Geula said, ‘‘On the one hand, the easiest solution would be for Pnina to be converted to Judaism, then we could have a wedding.’’ She clapped her hands. ‘‘Like that, no trouble.’’

  Avi growled: ‘‘Look, here we are on the brink of war. As far as I’m concerned they could be married tomorrow. We need her whether they’re Mrs Whatever or Mr Who Cares.’’ He looked around the table for objections. Uri picked a feather off his jacket. ‘‘It’s a chicken and egg problem,’’ he said.

  ‘‘And what does that mean, my wise man?’’ Aviva asked.

  ‘‘It means — it means that it really doesn’t matter which comes first, marriage or children, his name or hers.’’

  Nurit, who hadn’t contributed up till then, said quietly: ‘‘Look, it is Purim next week. Was Queen Esther Jewish? Of course not. And isn’t she looked upon as a heroine in Jewish history? So where’s the problem? Avi’s uncle in Safed is a rabbi, the one we dragged off the Exodus, right out of the arms of the British. Now we need a favour from him.’’ She turned to Avi. ‘‘Nu, Avi, what do you say?’’

  Avi smiled broadly. ‘‘ ‘A Daniel come to judgement’, as Shakespeare said. I’ll send a jeep for him in the morning.’’

  ‘‘Tonight,’’ Nurit demanded.

  ‘‘Okay, tonight.’’ He winked at her. ‘‘You coming with me?’’

  The meeting broke up. Geula left this matter out of the minutes. Nobody would ever know — officially, that is.

  On the morning of their wedding, Jacob and Peg lay in bed with Joshua between them. Shirley had dressed and fed him and brought him to their hut. Peg was laughing at Jacob’s attempts to persuade her that Joshua looked like either of them.

  ‘‘I’ve looked at every inch of him and there’s not a freckle to be seen,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Well, he hasn’t even got my nose,’’ Jacob said.

  ‘‘Lucky for him,’’ Peg said, ‘‘or I’d have dropped him over the side of the boat.’’ They recalled that grim morning and were momentarily subdued. Joshua spoke to them in Hebrew. Peg and Jacob looked at him, then at each other, and burst out laughing.

  ‘‘We would have to be the only parents in the world who can’t understand what their own child is saying to them!’’

  Peg got out of bed and showered. Jacob admired her body, now slimmer and firmer from hard work. He wished Joshua were somewhere else at that moment. She dried herself and dressed in a long white caftan with gold braid at the neck, hem and cuffs. She put on a new pair of beautifully fashioned Yemenite sandals. ‘‘Okay, Yakov, that’s me all togged up, now what about you?’’

  Jacob also showered, then dressed in a new white shirt, dark blue trousers and sandals that matched Peg’s. They were a present from Shimon, who had learned leatherwork in the village of his birth. Jacob also wore a crocheted blue-and-white kippah skull cap. When they were both ready, they took Joshua by the hand and led him down between them to the garden lawn in front of the Administration building.

  The wedding canopy had been erected and its four poles decorated with flowers. Someone had managed to obtain some mimosa, its bright yellow fluffy balls looking like gold in the morning sun. When Peg saw it, she cried: ‘‘Ooh, they’ve gone and got wattle, just like at home!’’ Just about the entire kibbutz membership had gathered to see the marriage. Even Shimon, propped up in a wheelchair, was there and got a kiss from Peg.

  The giant figure of Avi was planted alongside Jacob like a hundred-year-old cedar. Together they stood under the marriage canopy, Avi’s head touching the fabric. His uncle, the rabbi, faced them and held a prayer book and a silver cup of wine. The service began with the rabbi’s chanting; the only incongruous note was the patrol of the sentry, who passed the ceremony at regular intervals. A couple of minutes later, Uri led Peg to her place beside Jacob. Nurit, as a ‘‘bridesmaid’’, accompanied Peg under the canopy. She was wearing her service khakis, as if to demonstrate that she was never really off-duty. Her olive brown skin contrasted with Peg’s auburn hair and suntanned freckles.

  The rabbi sang:

  ‘‘He who is supremely mighty,

  He who is supremely blessed,

  He who is supremely sublime,

  May he bless the groom and bride.’’

  Nurit came forward and proferred the wine to Jacob and to Peg. Avi handed the ring to Jacob, who slipped it on to Peg’s finger. The rabbi said another prayer and then Jacob, nudged by Avi, kissed Peg. Avi then placed a small glass at Jacob’s foot. He stamped on the glass, shattering it to cries of ‘‘Mazel Tov” (Good luck!) from everyone. The rabbi then produced the marriage document, a parchment, hand-written scroll, which he proceeded to read at a rapid rate.

  In a manner of one making a public proclamation, he declared: ‘‘You are now mar
ried according to the law of Moses and of Israel.’’

  When he had finished, he handed the scroll to Peg. Nurit whispered that it was customary for the bride to keep the document as proof that she was a properly married woman.

  As they moved out from under the canopy, Peg swept up Joshua from Shirley and waved the marriage document in front of him. ‘‘See, you little bugger,’’ she cried through laughter and tears, ‘‘I’m your mum now, so don’t ever forget it!’’

  Shirley came forward to take Joshua back to the children’s house but was shooed away by Peg. She and Jacob had the day off from their duties; the kitchen had packed them a picnic lunch. Jacob hoisted Joshua on to his shoulders and the three of them set out to walk to the wadi where the spring ran cool and the trees gave shade. The kibbutz members made an avenue for them to pass along and sang a song of peace to them.

  FODRTeen

  The Partition of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly on 29 November, 1947 was supposed to meet the basic claims of both Jews and Arabs. Like most compromises, it was immediately attacked by both parties. Jews and Arabs had historic roots in the country. At the time of the Partition, there were some 650,000 Jews and about 1,200,000 Arabs, dissimilar in their ways of living and separated by political differences which virtually made agreement between them impossible. The British Mandate, which would end on May 14, 1948, was the only force that kept the Arabs and Jews from full-scale war. The British, wary of the future of the Suez Canal and the Arabian oilfields, favoured the Arab cause.

  While there was no official change in the attitude of the kibbutz members towards Jacob and Peg after their marriage, in many small ways, as the weeks flew by and they adjusted to having Spring in April, they became more closely integrated into the running of Kibbutz Jezreel. Peg, delighted to be called ‘‘Pnina’’, a name she found quite euphonious, was asked to give first-aid and nursing instruction. All men and women had to attend and the emphasis, sadly, was on the treatment of war wounds. She was given British army medical corps books to study and was horrified at the range and extent of injuries men could inflict on one another. The happiest days she spent on a kibbutz facing up to the inevitability of war was to be midwife at the birth of a baby.