A Promised Land?

by Alan Collins

  Joshua stabbed down hard on the brakes. There was cursing from the men and Ilan, barely restrained by the seatbelt, jerked forward, hitting his head on the windscreen. He straightened up, and as though nothing had happened, he said coldly, ‘‘Not clever, Joshua. Not again.’’ Then he stuck something hard into Joshua’s side. ‘‘We go through the bushes off the road.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘You can wait there or come with us over the sandhills.’’

  They left the white ribbon of concrete road and drove along a poor bitumen stretch that petered out into loose dirt and gravel. There was no street lighting and the moon stayed resolutely behind the clouds. Joshua drove deliberately fast over the ruts, taking pleasure in hearing his passengers swearing. Banksias brushed against the sides of the van. Just as Joshua was worried that the lettering on the sides would be damaged, the van entered a clearing and the track ended. The headlights made huge hills out of the sand hummocks. Joshua turned off the engine and lights and sank back in the seat.

  Ilan was already out of the van and round the back. The two men, still cursing, got out and dragged the sports bag with them. Ilan called softly to Joshua to join them. Joshua asked nervously what was going on. Reluctantly he walked round to the rear of the van. For the first time since leaving the dockside, he saw the two men clearly. Dressed in black from head to toe they looked like one-dimensional cut-outs, standing on an Australian sandhill and smoking fiercely — the only sign of life they gave.

  Ilan took Joshua aside. ‘‘There is a French ship in Woolloo-mooloo dock that comes from Bangkok. In the next berth is an Israeli freighter that brought potash from Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba. You know this is Israel’s southern seaport, used since the Suez Canal was closed to Israeli shipping.’’ He paused to see what effect this was having on Joshua. Satisfied that he had his attention, he went on: ‘‘These guys have a pipeline of small arms that come from … well, you don’t need to know. The thing is, Joshua, they’re offering them at’’ — he laughed — ‘‘at steal prices.’’

  They slogged through the sandhills until they were in a deep trough. Illan grabbed Joshua and gestured to the two men. ‘‘I guess by now you can tell that apart from being a student of irrigation, I am also an officer in the Israeli army. Before I can buy what these men are offering, I must test them.’’

  He left Joshua and joined the two men. The bag was opened and the guns laid out on a sheet of canvas spread on the sand. They talked rapidly in French and suddenly a shot rang out, followed by the whirr of wings as startled nightbirds took flight. Joshua jumped and called out, ‘‘What the hell was that?’’

  Ilan laughed. ‘‘Oh oh, here we have a man who has never heard a shot fired. I can’t believe it!’’ He laughed until one of the men spoke to him angrily.

  Joshua came over and peered reluctantly at the guns. He was feeling a bit ashamed of his outburst. Even at rest on the canvas, the guns looked evil and threatening to him. He could not identify them but Ilan unhesitatingly called out the various makes. They could have been breeds of dogs for all he knew.

  After the initial shot, the three men went about a systematic test-firing, pointing the weapons into the hummock a hundred metres away. After the first few shots, Joshua became accustomed to the explosions of sound. He had to keep telling himself that these were the sounds of death and that the bullets thudding into the sandhills were the same as those that had killed his mother. He sidled inconspicuously back to the van. He felt ashamed at what Ilan might think about him but the sight and sound of the guns distressed him greatly. Jacob’s influence ran deeper than he knew.

  The shooting stopped, leaving the Australian night air disturbed by nothing more than the birds and the rustling of scrabbling creatures in the thin ground cover. The van rocked as the men clambered into the back once more.

  Ilan grinned at him. ‘‘How do you like our fireworks, chaver?’’

  Joshua was in no mood for jokes. He told Ilan: ‘‘Enough bloody noise to wake the dead. Now let’s get back to civilisation for God’s sake.’’

  ‘‘Don’t you want to know the results of our little trial?’’

  ‘‘The less I know, the better I like it,’’ Joshua replied and then regretted it. He was deeply troubled. It was almost an obligation on him to support any action to defend the heavily outnumbered Israel. With one exception, everyone close to him supported Israel. Mrs Rothfield, as he once told her, was like Lord Nelson, putting the telescope to her blind eye (she didn’t understand the allusion); Uncle Siddy, who saw everything in its crudest form, would give ‘‘a quid for the bloody cause’’; whenever Abe Lewis had a spare minute and a pencil and piece of paper he would draw up the lines of battle as he, an old desert campaigner, saw it. ‘‘That Israeli general with the patch over his eye is no mug, I’m tellin’ ya.’’

  The exception was Jacob. He had expunged Israel from his memory.

  Ilan dug Joshua in the ribs. ‘‘I asked you what you …’’

  ‘‘Oh, sorry Ilan. Yeah,’’ he said with forced bravado, ‘‘the big shoot-out. Great stuff. What happens now? No, don’t tell me. I can guess. All that hardware is now OK for killing. Shit, what a sick world. I wish Laura hadn’t brought you to the printery.’’

  Ilan smiled. ‘‘If she hadn’t, we would have found you anyway. Your family’s name has a place of honour at Kibbutz Jezreel.’’

  The journey back to the wharves went quickly. Joshua drove right on the speed limit, the van sliding into the dockside three hours after it had left on its mission to the La Perouse sandhills. The two men disappeared into the sea mist. Ilan shook Joshua’s hand in thanks and went off in the opposite direction.

  ‘‘So I’m a bloody gun-runner,’’ Joshua told himself on the drive back to Bondi. He passed Victoria Barracks and shuddered at the prospect of life behind its forbidding sandstone walls. He had no idea of the legality or otherwise of what he had taken part in but was damn sure he was going to keep his mouth shut about it.

  The welcome curve of Bondi Beach came in sight. The moon, full and creamy, shone like a searchlight on the combing waves. Joshua put the van away, ran upstairs to his flat and ripped off his clothes. He put on his beach shorts and sprinted down to the sand. He caught a glimpse of the clock on the hotel tower. Just after two. The first delicious wash of salt water over his feet was a feeling cleaner than anything he could ever recall. Then he was immersed, diving with purging pleasure, coming up for the briefest moment then plunging down again and again to the sandy bottom. When he finally emerged, he stretched out on the chilly sand, the grit against his skin and rolled in it until he felt the events of the night expunged.

  As he stared up at the night sky, he remembered a half-forgotten story Jacob had once told him of how he had tried to drown himself by holding on to a piece of giant kelp, anchoring himself to the seabed. He never said what drove him to it but Joshua found out from Mrs Rothfield (who knew everything) that Jacob had been deeply affected by the death or suicide of his father.

  Joshua shook himself free of the thought, ran once more into the surf and emerged cleansed of sand. He looked across the bay to the north. There was a light in Jacob’s flat. Well, it was too late now to call; and Mitzi’s cafe was shut. When he wanted to talk to someone, there was nobody … nobody? Oh yes, there was somebody, my bloody word there was. He raced back to the flat, picked up the antiVietnam war leaflet and dialled the telephone number on the bottom of it; after a long ringing tone, a sleepy voice answered.

  Joshua said, almost out of breath, ‘‘Is that you Laura?’’

  ‘‘Who’s that?’’ The voice was clogged with sleep.

  Joshua hesitated, his hand ready to cut off the call. Despite the chilling effect of wet shorts, his forehead was hot and sweaty. ‘‘It’s me, I mean Joshua.’’ He gripped the phone against any temptation to hang up. ‘‘Oh shit, Laura, it’s Joshua Kaiser.’’ There was a pause and for a moment Joshua hoped she might hang up.

  ‘‘You certainly pick your time to call.’’ But her
tone, Joshua noted with relief, was not angry. Calmly she continued, ‘‘I had hoped you’d call me, Joshua. Come to think of it, this is not such a bad time, is it? I mean, the world is quiet and we can talk as if there are just the two of us and we’re the only ones awake.’’

  Joshua nodded. Laura asked, ‘‘Are you there?’’

  Hastily he replied, ‘‘Oh yes, yes, I’m here,’’ and wondered what had possessed him to make the call in the first place.

  When Laura spoke again, her voice was warm, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘‘How long have you been home, Joshua? I rang you earlier …’’

  Now Joshua knew why he had called Laura. She spoke close to the mouthpiece, he could hear her breathing. He wriggled out of his wet shorts and stood naked while she talked to him. It did not matter much what she said. He looked down at himself with a tingle of vanity and self-satisfaction. He cut across her as though he were physically putting a hand over her mouth.

  ‘‘I have just come back from watching two Frenchmen and one Israeli blast away with guns at a sandhill.’’

  ‘‘Did you say what I thought you said?’’

  With his free hand he reached for his underpants and put them on. ‘‘Yes, my little protestor, that’s what I said. Shanghai’d by your mate Ilan and persuaded to —’’

  Laura gave a throaty laugh. ‘‘He really did get you in Josh, didn’t he? I told him I thought you’d be the right bloke. Hold the line a minute.’’ When she returned she said, ‘‘Just checking if I had any coffee left in the house.’’ Joshua clenched the phone. ‘‘Plenty of coffee and I’d love to hear all about it. Is it too late for you?’’ Joshua shook his head. Laura said: ‘‘Oh it is, is it?’’

  ‘‘Oh no,’’ Joshua rushed to assure her. ‘‘No way. I was thinking.’’

  ‘‘We’ve lots of things to think about — together. Write down my address — see you soon, Joshua.’’

  It was a street in Paddington where the terraced houses tottered up and down the hills. The working-class families that had rented them for eighty years or more had been forced out by a new class — students who could band together to pay more and who painted the dilapidated buildings in garish colors. Just a few minutes as the crow flies from the Philips’ penthouse apartment in Darling Point, where Laura’s parents kept her chintzy bedroom ever ready. Her mother, a fundraiser of formidable skill for many Jewish causes, had even steeled herself to invite Laura to ‘‘crash’’ in her old room. Her father shuddered at the expression, especially as Laura had bought a motor scooter.

  Joshua parked the van on the steep hillside, in gear and with the handbrake pulled on hard. Under the street light he now saw quite clearly the scratches to the gold lettering on the van’s sides. Jacob would have to know how it happened: Joshua could not lie to his father. A steep flight of stone steps led up from the footpath to the front door. Geraniums grew with abandon in pots on either side. There was no need for Joshua to knock; the door was slightly ajar. As he pushed it a little bell tinkled. Laura’s voice came from somewhere above him.

  ‘‘Ssh, up the stairs. Be careful, I don’t want to put the light on.’’

  As the door had opened Joshua had seen the entrance hall and a flight of stairs. Now the door was shut. ‘‘God, Laura,’’ he whispered, ‘‘it’s as black as an Afghan’s armpit.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Oh sorry, that’s what Uncle Siddy used to say.’’ Joshua wondered if Afghanistan was also one of Laura’s protest projects. He stumbled to the first stair and climbed quickly, feeling quite foolish when he reached the top and stamped down heavily thinking there was another step. Laura came forward, arms wide, and saved his balance. They stayed like that for a moment before she took his hand and led him across the tiny landing to her room.

  Joshua blinked as much from the panorama of posters that covered the walls as from the sudden light. There was hardly a cause, international, Australian, State and even municipal that was not represented. Political, social and environmental calamities were fertile fields for protest. The artwork on the posters sprang from Picasso to Peruvian. Somewhere on the planet there would always be a wrong that needed righting.

  Joshua had seen a few of them around the university campus but their massed propinquity on Laura’s walls overwhelmed him. Laura watched him drink it all in. She went over to her low bed with the Mexican rug and flopped. On shelves of bricks and planks, her books sprawled much as their owner did. At the end of one shelf, a hot water jug began to splutter. She had to ask Joshua twice how he liked his coffee. He told her. Only then did he really take notice of her, sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed. She was wearing a black crushed velvet dress with beads that hung down to her waist. Her hair flowed loosely down her back. A tiny bell on her bangle jingled as she poured two mugs of coffee. What affected Joshua most was the sight of her bare feet peeking out from under the black dress.

  He took the proffered coffee and sipped. It was awful. Murky, bitter and sugarless. Its harsh flavour brought him back to earth. Laura saw him pull a face.

  ‘‘Sorry, Josh, no sugar. Have to wait a couple of days till Daddy’s cheque comes, then we’ll have milk and sugar.’’ She took the mug from him, put her own down and patted the bed. The only chair in the room was snowed under with clothes. Joshua sat on the edge of the bed, his tall frame not at all comfortable. Laura saw his unease and with a swift movement tipped him off-balance so that he fell back on the bed.

  ‘‘That better?’’

  ‘‘Not really,’’ he breathed. She leaned over him, brought her head down to his and kissed him. Her long black hair brushed his cheeks; this stirred him more than her deep, searching kiss. Her hair did not smell of exotic bottled perfume. It was redolent of the crisp aroma of eucalyptus which Joshua inhaled with unrestrained excitement. He turned his face away from her mouth and buried it in her hair. Laura rested lightly on top of him, their bodies making contact from head to toe. She spoke to him with her lips close to his ear.

  ‘‘I asked Ilan to use you for this little adventure tonight. I had a reason, Joshua. I reckoned that if you agreed to this, you would not be asked to join those groups going to Israel.’’

  ‘‘How do you figure that out? And anyhow, what’s your angle in this, Laura?’’

  Laura slipped her arm around his neck. She held him close. ‘‘If you showed Ilan that you could be a trusted agent here in Sydney, he wouldn’t pressure you to sign up. There, I reckon that answers both questions, doesn’t it?’’

  Whatever answer Joshua thought would be appropriate could wait. He rolled over, taking Laura with him. They sat up and began to undress. Joshua could not help noticing that while Laura’s dress might have come from an opportunity shop, her underwear was immaculate. He stopped suddenly and asked her if they could turn the light off.

  Laura looked amused. ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Well, I feel with all those posters around the wall that we’re not making love so much as a political statement!’’

  Laura giggled infectiously. ‘‘Do you think the Women’s Movement would disapprove?’’ She turned off the overhead light then switched on a bedside lamp that cast an orange glow, and turned back the Mexican rug. Even in the subdued light, Joshua could see that the sheets were spotless and of top quality. There was obviously a limit to how much proletarian deprivation Laura could handle.

  They made love enthusiastically, unhindered by the need to declare their undying devotion to each other. Later, Laura said, ‘‘You’re the first Jewish boy I have been to bed with.’’

  Joshua asked, half-seriously, ‘‘My reward for helping the Israeli cause? I only ran guns for you. What did the goyim have to do? Throw paint over the Premier’s cavalcade?’’

  Laura laughed. ‘‘Well, one of them actually did and the cops locked him up for the night. But seriously Joshua, what about those posters I brought to the printery? When can I get them?’’

  Joshua could not give her a definite answ
er. Jacob had yet to be brought around. He did not feel obliged to make excuses to Laura for his father’s point of view. War and killing, whether it was in the Middle East or Indo-China, was anathema to Jacob. Laura would have to wait for her answer — but not too long, he hoped.

  FIVE

  The Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, while on a visit to England, told a dinner at the Australian Club in London: ‘‘We are at war in Vietnam, make no mistake about it.’’

  His declaration brought a savage response from the Leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, who asked: ‘‘If we are at war, why have neither the Parliament or the people of Australia been told clearly and frankly why we are at war, what are the objectives of the war and what sacrifices are expected of the nation, especially by the conscripts?’’

  Radio news report, 30 June 1965

  March 17, 1947 was recorded as Joshua’s birthday. Pnina fixed on this date because it coincided with the happy Jewish festival of Purim. Jacob, casting around for Jewish heroines to compare Pnina with, remembered the Biblical story which told of the beautiful Esther who saved the Persian Jews from certain destruction in 450 BC.

  Pnina and Jacob had agreed it was a wonderful birth-date for a child born in a displaced persons’ camp in Trieste and who was now free.

  On Joshua’s twentieth birthday, a blustery wind howled outside the printery almost loud enough to muffle the reassuring hum of the machinery. Arriving home, the evening news told of the arrest in Sydney of a conscientious objector after a twelve-month fight to avoid conscription. The newspapers showed ten Commonwealth police dragging him off to prison. In Israel, eleven civilians were killed in an El Fatah raid, signalling an outbreak of Arab guerilla warfare.

  Joshua’s family, Jacob and Great Uncle Siddy and those he loved most, Mrs Rothfield and Abe Lewis, decided to mark his birthday with a party. Abe was pleased as Punch when the offer to have it at his house was accepted. ‘‘It’s about time that bloody great mausoleum had a bit o’ life thrown into it,’’ he said. ‘‘And,’’ he added, resting a hairy hand on Jacob’s, ‘‘it’s a kind of homecoming in a funny sort of way, isn’t it?’’