My Father, His Daughter

by Yaël Dayan

  I rented a room in the apartment of a lovely old lady my grandparents knew, in Swiss Cottage, and took the bus every morning to Fleet Street, to the offices of the Jewish Observer, a weekly magazine which was quite an authority on Middle Eastern affairs thanks to its brilliant and knowledgeable editor, Jon Kimche. I did some translations, but mostly research on Hungarian Jewry under the Nazi occupation and on the attempts to bargain with the authorities to “buy” a certain number of lives. Kimche directed my research as if I were a qualified university graduate, the Wiener Library had files and papers on everything relevant to the period, and I trained my eye and brain to select, to read between the lines, put together facts from different sources, and create a pattern, as if I were completing a fascinating jigsaw puzzle. I lied about my age and easily passed for an eighteen-year-old, and my salary was raised to five pounds a week. With this fortune, I could indulge myself.

  For a very brief while, I playacted the woman I wasn’t. I painted my fingernails red, wore eye makeup, dared high heels, and even attempted a change in dress and hairstyle. My friends were people I met through the magazine, mostly Jews, and a few journalists I met in the pub near the office.

  Letters from home were sweet and loving. My father suggested the “British experience” should soon be over, and I couldn’t have agreed with him more. I disliked most of it, other than the actual work. The smell of fried bacon and kippers in the block of flats, the indifference of people I saw daily on the bus, the condescending attitude to foreigners, the anonymity which I appreciated at the start became an imposition rather than a choice. The aloof remarks of friends who were not Jewish about “your poor little country,” plus an undercurrent of traditional admiration of the exotic Arabs, annoyed me just as much as the apologetic discomfort of my Jewish friends. I missed my brothers, I missed my parents and grandparents and the beach and the sun, and I was nervously unhappy about myself. Men courted me, I was fun to be with to a point, but I was on edge. The slightest question about my “famous father” threw me off, and any humorous reference to my “brave little Jewish country” produced an outburst. I hated red fingernails, I craved sandals and tanned skin; the duffel coat was heavy and itchy, and Fleet Street suffocating and dark. I wanted to go home, away from the dry sherry before lunch, the posh shop windows on Bond Street, the cat-loving landlady, and the heap of pretense I felt buried under. Back among the aggressive natives, surrounded by other aggressive maniacs, where I belonged, where I could get up in the morning and cry out: I am a majority! I spent my savings on gifts to bring home, and some books, and landed in Israel as if I had escaped from a wrecked ship, almost kissing the soil.

  But the bug of travel had installed itself in my system. My curiosity was not satisfied, and I knew I should forever try to break away to explore, to feel lost in a crowd, to be an uninvolved stranger. The marvelous sensation of homecoming reassured me of the roots that enabled me to spread my wings.

  I returned just in time, for my Grandmother Dvorah was dying. She wasn’t dying; she was gradually fading away. My father, who held a dialogue with death all his life, could not contain his agony. In desolation, he almost ignored her sickness, which steadily progressed, devouring her. Since her youth, she had fought cancer, had undergone operations, but clung to life and stubbornly refused to give in. Her small frame was the size of a child’s now; the beautiful face wrinkled; the long braid of raven-black hair of which my father was so proud was lusterless and meager. She bent under the blow of Zorik’s death but forced herself into a renewed vitality with a bravery and resolution which had astounded us all. Of her grandchildren, only I was really aware of her condition, and I soon realized I couldn’t talk to my father about it. While she was still alive, he turned her into a holy, perfect memory, and with all his cool reasoning, the man who could distinguish so well between imagination, wishful thinking, and facts could not accept the obvious proximity of her death.

  I found a room to share in Jerusalem and, not yet seventeen, became the youngest student at Hebrew University, supporting myself on a meager salary from the Department of Tourism, where I had found a job. A room and a job in Jerusalem, home and family in Zahala, forty weekly hours at the university, and a good number of friends in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Enough to keep anyone busy and content, and mostly I was.

  If clouds were gathering and there was tension in the air, it was over the national sky. The word “war” was mentioned often at home, and when my father talked of “war” he did not mean an isolated act of retaliation. The Czech arms deal supplied Egypt with massive quantities of heavy tanks, guns, jet fighters, and bombers, and by the summer of 1956 these arms were absorbed and operational. The Soviet weaponry came with full political backing, and Nasser could feel confident and ready, controlling this formidable might. France was our only supplier of arms, and in April the first Mystère warplanes arrived, followed by AMX tanks and an agreement with Britain for the purchase of Meteor night-fighter planes. There was no way we could match Egypt in quantity, but in quality we were superior, both in equipment and in fighting ability.

  My father set new priorities concerning the Egyptian war challenge. The acquisition of arms was tops, from every possible source—excluding the U.S.A., which adamantly refused to change its embargo policy. Next was the reorganization of civil defense and emergency services, and the fortification of settlements. The Army itself, an alert, capable fighting machine, was ready. At the end of June, Father left for Paris, with Shimon Peres, who was director general of the Ministry of Defense, and returned satisfied, with a firm agreement for an additional supply of arms. This trip, and others that followed preceding the Sinai Campaign, were shrouded in secrecy. At no point did my father conceal these “secret” missions from the family, or at least from my mother and me. He mentioned, almost casually, that it was classified, that he was going under cover, in a military plane, but didn’t fuss with “Don’t dare tell” or “Let there be no leak,” and didn’t dramatize. He confided in us, shared his anxieties when he left and his accomplishments when he returned.

  He showed only a vague interest in my studies, and almost no interest in my social life. Some of my friends visited me at home. They were students, a young journalist, a painter, and a couple of classmates who were in the Army. The fact that all were men and a few years older than I didn’t seem to bother him, and I didn’t regard it as unusual, either. There was no serious romance, and if there was, it was one-sided. I had a strange feeling of a growing capacity, though not a desire, to hurt men who were involved with me. I was not ready for any form of attachment on an exclusive or long-lasting basis and was not sexually attracted to any of them. The greatest friendship I developed was with a homosexual, as this satisfied both of us and was free of expectations, jealousies, and plans. It intrigued my father, who refused to acknowledge the fact that homosexuality existed. It can’t be, because it’s unnatural, he said naively. Yet he wondered: What did they do when they did? And pulled a face expressing disgust when I tried, avoiding all words which were unmentionable at home, to graphically suggest it was possible. I often went out with a young student of economics. My feelings toward him swung between near-love and a fear of hurting him. Because he was in love with me, because he was a devoted friend, because he was intelligent and honest and fun to be with, he was bound to be hurt, since I wasn’t ready for him. I was a mixed-up, restless, self-centered young woman, and he couldn’t wait the length of time it would take me to come to terms with myself, my surroundings, my family, and my plans. I was honest enough not to mislead and secure enough not to tease. I knew no jealousies, as I didn’t allow myself a deep love, and I didn’t want to own or dominate; touching was sufficient.

  My father wanted to know more, but was afraid to find out, and I volunteered nothing. He ignored and simply regarded as nonexistent many phenomena and people he didn’t like, and it was obvious that the thought of someone touching me, or, God forbid, making love to me, was shelved as something unpleasant, preferably
impossible. I was touched, and I did make love, and not necessarily with the one man I cared for most at the time.

  I had begun to work as an assistant to a film director who came to make some documentaries for the Tourist Department. He was married, separated from his wife, fifteen years my senior, and extremely wise and gentle. We worked around the clock, and it seemed only natural when lovemaking followed. I didn’t look forward to it, I didn’t expect much, and there was no room for disappointment. Not such a big deal, I thought, and though I learned to enjoy more as I cared more for my partners, it basically remained so. It was fun to taste the first clementines of the season; it was great to swim at sunset on a hot, still day; it was superb to have a real, precise, totally honest conversation, and sex was okay too. So were some good passages in Malaparte or Camus; so were solitary walks. So there was no promiscuity and no obsession, and it rather surprised me when the man said to me: Did you know you are marvelous?—meaning in bed. They say it to all women, I gathered, and was satisfied to be a good, average, easy-to-fulfill partner.

  To my enormous surprise, word of the “affair” got to my family, and for all the wrong reasons they were alarmed. Part of my salary was a ticket to the United States and back, and somehow this was transformed into a story of elopement, maybe even a kidnapping. As nobody dared face me with straight questions, least of all my mother and father, I had no chance to laugh it off or explain. And then, in the least suitable circumstances, I had an opportunity to do so.

  My Grandmother Dvorah had improved after the removal of a tumor, but, toward the summer, her condition worsened. My father visited Nahalal as frequently as he could, to spend a few minutes at her bedside and distract her from the pain and agony, but mostly she was taken care of by Aviva, Shmuel, and my mother. Toward the end of June, she asked to be transferred to a hospital. It was too much work for everybody, she said; let professionals do it. She knew that, as much as she wanted to die at home, she was leaving Nahalal for good. On the way out of the village, she lifted herself up in the ambulance to look at the Hill of Shimron, a farewell to Zorik, who was buried there, which also meant: I’ll soon join you. My grandfather, who sat by her bed in the hospital, wrote down every word she said, every conversation she held, in a shaking hand and in tear-smeared ink. She talked of Ben-Gurion, wishing he were gentler in personality; of Sharett, whom she liked but disagreed with; of her work and the future of the Labor movement; and she talked about me. Of Grandmother Rachel, who visited her, she begged: “Yaël has to be saved from the trap set for her. She is so clever and talented, how come she doesn’t realize? She is Moshe’s daughter, how can she do it to him?” I visited the next day, and she asked my grandfather to leave us alone. She was crying and in pain, and I held her shrunken, tiny hand in mine, trying in vain to calm her. “I hear dreadful things about you. How can you live with a married man? How can you go with him to America? His wife will make a scandal; you’ll be rejected by everybody; your reputation will be ruined, and it may even destroy your father’s position. I talked to your father about it and saw a tear in his eye, just as when you crawled to him in the Acre prison …” I was crying, but I managed to compose myself. I had to bring this uncalled-for scene to an end, and I was furious and irritated. This exceptional woman, in her dying bed, was anguished by some idiotic distortion of reality. I must have sounded cold and harsh, but I had something to put across through the morphine and the physical pain. “This is nonsense, and I beg you to believe me. I’m not living with him; I’m going to America because it’s a chance to go and I’ve earned it, working pretty hard. I’m not surrounded by evil people. I am seventeen, and a student, and I’m not doing anything you, or I, or my father should be ashamed of.” She was crying and nodding, and I felt the distance between us grow as if a hand were pulling her away from me. “Please,” I said, “don’t let it worry you, please get better, I love you so much.” She stopped crying and for a minute resumed a posture I could relate to. There was wisdom and acceptance of reality in her eyes. “Don’t disappoint me, or your father,” she said, with great fatigue. The nurse came in and gave her an injection when I left; she was tortured by unbearable pain.

  My father visited when he could, but she was under the illusion that he was there every day, morning and night. “Brave Moshe,” she said. “If he were in my place, he would have shot himself. When the pain is so strong, all I want is to make it to the window and throw myself out.” She begged my father to help her terminate her sufferings. She was burning slowly. The cancer in her liver spread quickly to the lungs, and a lump in her throat made breathing difficult. She alternated between hallucinations and clarity, and kept insisting: I’m not afraid of death, so why the torture? Yet she fought and held on to whatever hope she could. She wanted to return to Nahalal, promised the visiting grandchildren—only Udi broke into tears—that she would soon be well and with them. Toward the end of July, she was unconscious with painkillers most of the time, and asked for my father whenever she came to. The doctors said it was a matter of hours, but it took a few long days, during which she had an angry, bitter expression on her face, much the same as my father’s on the day he died.

  On July 26, 1956, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal. The possibility of a combined French-British-Israeli operation against Egypt was still remote, but Nasser’s action triggered a series of reactions that resulted in the Sinai Campaign a few months later.

  July 28 was a Saturday. My father had a great deal of concentrated solitary thinking to do, and as was his habit then, he did it while on a dig. He left early in the morning, heading south, to a site he had recently discovered near Ashkelon, and I went with Mother to the hospital. At noon that day, my grandmother passed away. I looked at what was left of her, with great pity. Death was a blessing for her.

  My father had to be found, and a helicopter was sent to search for him. When he was spotted from the air, a note was dropped to tell him of his mother’s death. He arrived an hour later, dry-eyed and impatient with us all. There was nothing to say and very little to do, and I suspect each of us wanted to be left alone. There was something legendary about Dvorah, and her impact was stronger than her personality. Almost someone to admire rather than love, to approach rather than touch. Her self-discipline and honesty were so superior that they acted as a barrier.

  My father had gradually developed into a “legend” very difficult to live with, but my grandmother was always a symbol of achievements and of qualities so perfect that, for fear of being put to shame or totally consumed, one had to keep away. Her disappearance left an accusing vacuum that nobody would, or perhaps wished, to fill.

  She was buried in Nahalal, not far from her son Zorik, and my father hurried after the funeral to a meeting with Ben-Gurion. There was no way he would sit Shiva or share and expose the sense of loss he felt.

  He proposed to Ben-Gurion a preemptive attack on Egypt, and suggested the Army could capture the Sinai Peninsula or, in turn, lift the blockade by seizing Sharm el-Sheikh. Ben-Gurion decided to wait till the heavier arms from France arrived and were integrated. In London and Paris, a resolution was reached to launch a joint attack on Egypt and hold the Suez Canal zone. The coordination of these two proposals was a question of time. Time enough, my father assured me, to go to the States, see, learn, and enjoy, and come back. “Don’t worry,” he promised. “I’ll make sure you are here, as I don’t intend to fight a war without you …”

  EIGHT : A SOLDIER IN HIS ARMY

  The departure was easy. I wasn’t leaving home but going on a well-deserved vacation. The man who had so frightened my grandmother left long before, and nobody thought I was running away, leaving home and country to join a married lover. I was given some money in addition to what I had saved, planned to stop in Rome and Paris, and my mother had Maskit make a beautiful wardrobe for me. My parents gave me a list of addresses and names of people to call, and it seemed to my father, though not taken for granted, that with three hundred dollars, a passport, and
a suitcase, I could stay for a long while and profit from every minute. After all, I was seventeen and a half! Needless to say, youngsters didn’t roam the world the way they do now or even twenty years ago. Travel was a privilege a few could afford, economically and emotionally. The world was less homogeneous and there were few common denominators, all of which contributed to a sense of fear, discomfort, and insecurity when faced with exposure to “foreign” things. But my previous trip, my “worldly” upbringing, and my knowledge of English eliminated any anxieties I might have had, and I was on my way.

  I looked a lot different than a year earlier, when I left with my grandmother. My dresses were simple but of good quality and fashionable. I was slimmer and suntanned and didn’t need any makeup or a special hairdo. I let my hair grow to shoulder length and have never had it shorter since. The only concession I made to feminine indulgence was hair removal from my armpits and legs; the rest was natural, clean, and tidy.

  My first stops in Rome and Paris were, in a curious way, a revival of my artist’s café days in Tel Aviv. A short, brisk, and this time amusing lesson in what was given me because of my father’s eminence and what was mine regardless of him. By his grace, or rightfully mine. If I was invited to Cinecitta to watch the filming of Ben-Hur, guided there by a top PR lady, and given a ride in a Roman chariot driven by a famous star—that was listed under Dayan. When the star called on me in my small hotel room late that night, and swore all he wanted was a deeper and more meaningful relationship and tried to woo me into lovemaking, this was listed as a Yaël episode. A friend of the family, a journalist living in Rome, suggested I move in with his family and use the spare room. This was a Dayan offer. When his two sons competed for my attentions (they were both gorgeous) and I didn’t really want either but found out they felt they were being played against each other, this was Yaël’s dubious achievement.