My Father, His Daughter

by Yaël Dayan

  “I’m studying day and night in order to complete my B.A. in less than two years, but I manage to be in Tel Aviv, in addition to the weekend, one night in the middle of the week as well.” The letter is signed “Yours with love,” and is one of many that followed, as well as conversations, on the subject of compatibility and his inability to adjust and change. Only twelve years later did my mother ask for a divorce, and at the time I wasn’t aware of the intricacies of their married life, as my own life had changed. Two things had happened. I moved in with a man I was very fond of, and I began to work on my first book. The man was a journalist who lived in a beautiful house in Jerusalem. His wife had left him shortly before, taking their two children with her, and he was deeply and hopelessly in love with me. For the first time, I encountered a selfless, all-out, giving love, and I tried, in my immature way, to reciprocate. He loved me regardless and in spite of my acts and moods and arrogance. He saw through me, and still loved what was at the bottom of it all, and perhaps helped me to shed a few layers of pretense and falseness and not be horrified at what was beneath. We laughed at me together; we joked about my shortcomings; we seriously examined my ability to write; and we held each other in great respect. He was much older than I was, older than my father, and all the obvious things that could be said and written on the subject were easy to ignore as textbook banalities. I was almost very happy, almost in love, almost faithful, as near to bliss as I could be then, and reassured about my ability to achieve and reach self-expression and some tranquillity in the future. I had a few months left in the Army and was looking forward to full-time writing in the company of a man I looked up to and desperately wished I wouldn’t hurt.

  One Friday afternoon, a military jeep stopped near the house and I was summoned out. The officer who drove said my father wished to see me—an emergency, he claimed—and off we went. My father wasn’t in the Army, and the summons seemed strange and irritated me, first into tears and later into plain fury. The officer drove me from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and there to the Security Service HQ. I was shown into a brightly lit room, where behind a large, imposing desk sat a senior intelligence officer. His face had the trained expression of suspicion and mistrust, with an additional wicked glee in his eyes. No, he said, I couldn’t call my friend to say I’d be late. No, I couldn’t call my father; yes, my father knew I was there and he’d pick me up when they were through.

  “Being through” took a few hours of hopeless, trying, unpleasant cross-examination. I didn’t lie—I didn’t have to—but I was in no way going to be cooperative. They knew everything, it seemed, but they suspected more and there was no “more” and nothing to add. They threw names at me—of students, journalists, diplomats, UN officials, names of friends, names of acquaintances, names of people I hardly or never met. The recurring question was: “Did you sleep with him,” and as the answer was, in all but two cases, negative, they tried to squeeze harder. “They” were two officers who joined the senior one, reading from pages which seemed to recount every move I’d made during the last year. I was tired and fed up. “Why should I be obliged to answer you, anyway? What kind of courtroom procedure is this?” The senior officer said I had ignored Army regulations whereby I was not to associate, I or any soldier, with foreigners.

  “What do Army regulations have to do with my father? He is a student at Hebrew University and has no authority to have you conduct this ‘inquisition.’” The officer was red in the face. “No authority? Moshe Dayan is an authority even if he were a night watchman in a hotel. And he will remain so. I don’t believe what you tell us about the ambassador and the UN chief!” “So you don’t.” I tried to remain calm. “We met for a friendly dinner once or twice. We talked about literature, and art. The ambassador and I share a passion for a little-known book by Paul Valéry. The UN chief is intrigued by surrealism. And I don’t care if you believe me or not.” He tried another approach and pretended to relax. “We really wanted to warn you, to protect you. After all, you don’t believe those illustrious people are genuinely interested in you. What can you offer them that they can’t find elsewhere—in art, or literature, or any area other than your father, or military activities … and perhaps a bit of sex with a young girl appeals to them.”

  He looked me over carefully, attempting a piercing, stripping look, and added: “Though I don’t quite see the sex appeal either …” I must have blushed, and tears of fatigue welled up in my eyes. “I don’t know what they can find, or you can’t find. I told you there was no sex. No Army topics, no flirting. There is a world out there, General, and it’s full of oddities. Like love, and camaraderie, and friendship, and people enjoying each other, and all those peculiar things, for free. For fun. For the hell of living and laughing and learning. Not for God, or country, or the service. So go ask them why they met with me. What dark ulterior motives made them have an ice cream with me in a hotel lobby or spaghetti at the Gondola. Maybe Paul Valéry is a code name, and Magritte is a secret agent, and you just discovered an international network of sophisticated spies, and I am its Mata Hari. May I go home now?”

  He left the room, apparently to call my father, and I realized how hungry I was. When he returned, he put a hand on my shoulder and mumbled: “You are quite a tough little girl. I should have known, being your father’s daughter.” I clenched my fists and didn’t answer. “The affair with your elderly journalist has to terminate. He’s a foreigner, and it’s against regulations.”

  “He’s lived in Jerusalem for the last fifteen years,” I tried, “and I’ll be out of the Army in a couple of months’ time.” “These are still the regulations,” he said. “So why don’t you leave him quietly, without a scandal. You don’t want to hurt his position, so just find a nice personal excuse.” I managed a quiet “Go to hell” and got up to leave.

  My father was waiting downstairs in his jeep. He was embarrassed, or at least uncomfortable.

  “What was this all about?” I snapped.

  “They thought you were trapped, maybe even being blackmailed. It wasn’t my own idea.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me yourself? We meet often enough. You never so much as asked or hinted or displayed the slightest interest.”

  “I didn’t really think it was my business, and felt I had no right to moralize. I figured you’d come to me if you were in trouble. They intended to question you anyway, not on my behalf, and I said I didn’t mind.”

  “Just so. Well, I’m lucky to be as smart and strong as I am. They were stupid, vulgar, and infantile. If I had something to hide, I could easily have done so.”

  We drove in silence. He had a bad headache, and I was exhausted. When he parked near the house in Zahala, I asked whether Mother was aware of this little drama.

  “Not in detail,” he said. “Why hurt her?”

  He had an extraordinary way of switching subjects and moods. He suddenly smiled, took me by the hand, and exclaimed: “Wait till you see my new acquisition! I’ve been digging in Givatayim for a month and found nothing, but yesterday afternoon I had my reward!” We walked around the house to the back yard, and he carried me away with him to the year 2000 B.C., holding and touching and admiring a small clay goddess of fertility. He looked at the array of pots in front of us and picked out a small oil lamp. He cleaned it carefully, took a pen out of his pocket, and wrote on the lamp: “To Yaël with love.” I thanked him casually and had to give it to him: it was an unconventional way of saying he was sorry.

  Back in Jerusalem, I packed and said goodbye, without explaining much. I thought he knew or at least felt that I was not leaving of my own choice. He was gentle enough not to insist, and we were both richer for the time we had together. The outline for my novel was complete, and I somehow managed to pass the end-of-year exams at the university, passing hints or even notes to my father, who conveniently sat next to me for some of the exams. I said goodbye to my commanders and subordinates, and visited the settlements for short, sad farewells. My two-year service was over, and I had
no regrets. I liked the uniform; I had met the challenge of giving of myself; I was witnessing the making of a nation and had a chance to contribute my minute share. It didn’t lift me to the level of sacrifice and dedication of my grandparents or my parents, but I thought of the service not as a duty, or a waste of two years, but as a right granted me. I was also saying a slow goodbye to the city of Jerusalem. I never felt totally at home in the city, and this lack of familiarity only added to the hold it had on me. I could rub against, touch, or watch, but never own its magic.

  NINE : MY FATHER, HIS DAUGHTER

  In my father’s autobiography, all 520 pages of it, only seventeen are devoted to the years 1958–67. In the detailed, official biography written by S. Tevet, the years 1960–67 are summed up in eighteen pages. My mother’s autobiography mentions in a few paragraphs several episodes that occurred during these years. The proportion is odd, considering Father was in what are considered his prime years. Ten lost years? Stagnation? A repose between military glory and the eminence of a statesman? They were certainly not years of inactivity, but there were fewer highlights, and both my father and his biographer tended to regard his life as a series of peaks, with the personal and national drama intertwined, and the in-between, whatever didn’t reach sky-high, was left in a cold, dull, insignificant shadow. Israel was ten years old, and those were its formative years. Foundations were dug and built in the fifties, and in the early sixties the finer shaping and carving took place.

  1959 was an election year and marks the entrance of my father actively into the political arena. With a few intervals, he was to serve as a cabinet minister and a member of parliament for the remainder of his life. The Labor Party was in power, headed by Ben-Gurion, and hoped to gain a decisive victory, winning more than fifty percent of the votes. Before it could achieve this, however, the party had to reach a reconciliation within its own ranks. The rift between the “youngsters,” represented by my father, Abba Eban, and Shimon Peres, and the “veterans” was growing. It wasn’t merely a biological war. The “youngsters,” backed by Ben-Gurion, represented a threat to some basic accepted concepts, and took liberties, questioning and attacking sacred cows. In many ways, this first entry into politics resembled my father’s early, rebellious methods in warfare. He was blunt, outlandish, pragmatic, and flexible. He attracted large audiences and filled them full of enthusiasm, deriving his power directly from Ben-Gurion, the supreme political authority, and from the people, while bypassing and at times ignoring or opposing the heavy, overpopulated party machine that was the source of power for the “veterans.” He was truthful to a fault, and for him what was good for the party was always secondary to Israel’s national priorities. It was perhaps typical and significant for his political career that, at the end of some rallies, admirers bore him aloft on their shoulders, crying: “Long live Dayan. Down with Labor.”

  He was a civilian now, easily recognized by the eye patch, and the fact that he was out of uniform didn’t afford him any privacy. Indeed, there were adjustments to be made. A military status had offered hothouse protection which he didn’t have now, and the new, unlimited exposure was not to his liking. Verbal expressions, activities, and love affairs which before were censored or covered over were now the stuff of newspaper headlines. Eager, hungry reporters, the barriers of military protection removed, were free to write, gossip, attack, and criticize.

  My father was firm in his reaction. He was not going to make any concessions in order to beautify his media image. His private life and morals were nobody’s business, and he was not applying for the post of preacher or educator. He did not feel he needed to “set an example” to others, and he didn’t feel obliged to apologize for or explain anything he did or said, unless it was in reference to public affairs. His performance as a member of the Knesset or a cabinet minister could be judged by his colleagues, superiors, and finally the voters. Everything else was private domain. He could not prevent or even minimize the exposure, but he was determined not to be affected by it, whatever the price.

  He made this clear to my mother, in letters and brief conversations. My brothers, he thought, were too young to be involved, and I was old enough, he believed, to understand. With the same notion of “sharing” that made him take me to the Negev wadis and his archaeological digs, he once invited me to dinner to meet one of his lady friends. To be precise, he invited me to dinner, and the rest was a surprise, which he tried to handle with casual charm. The first encounter in a series took place in his student apartment in Jerusalem. I was just out of uniform and about to go to Europe to complete my first novel. I visited him in the apartment many times, and when I entered on this particular winter evening, hurrying in to take cover from the heavy rain, and up the stairs, I found the door locked. I stood there swearing as he unlocked the door to let me in, quickly saying with a rather shy smile: “There is someone here I’d like you to meet.”

  We shook hands and she continued to set the table for three, obviously uncomfortable, as I was watching her closely. Father became very talkative, avoiding any embarrassing silences and fussing with the lousy salad and overdone omelette. I didn’t sulk and was more or less on my best behavior. The woman was very tall, not particularly attractive, and nervous. She felt at home there, and I could detect occasional intimate exchanges between them, which didn’t bother me much. He was having an affair with her. She was not the only one, nor the first, and what bothered me was not her presence there but mine. Why did he ask me over? He couldn’t be serious about her. He wasn’t a friend introducing me to a prospective bride so I could express an opinion. I never asked him about his women or showed the slightest curiosity: what was the purpose of this burdensome, unamusing, forced evening? I ate in a hurry, said I had a date later, and waited only for the rain to stop. The conversation was indifferent, and the three of us smiled often and out of context. When the rain turned into a drizzle, I put on my wet duffel coat and, with a polite “Pleased to have met you” to her and a kiss to him, walked to the door. He told her he’d be right back and offered to drive me, or at least accompany me to the bus station. We walked in large, decisive steps, hands in pockets, ignoring the rain and the puddles. I didn’t ask, but he spoke. “It was her idea, she so much wanted to meet you. She said it was the warmth with which I talked about you that intrigued her … A bright woman, interesting.” I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have anything to say.

  “It’s not serious, between us, I mean,” he felt obliged to add. I almost prepared a little speech, which I wouldn’t have delivered anyway. A variety of meaningful sentences formed in my head, but as we reached the bus stop, the bus pulled up and I hurried to board it. “Thanks for dinner,” I shouted before the door shut and he turned to walk back to his apartment, where his lover waited. I watched him for a brief moment and felt no anger. My father, my mother’s husband, a man of forty-five, still young and healthy, bright and famous, courageous and wise, walking alone in a Jerusalem street back to his shabby place to make love to a skinny woman. He read Alterman’s poetry to her; she knew how to prepare his favorite salad; and the rest, I supposed, happened in bed. Did I mind? Did I feel for my mother? Was I jealous? I felt irritated and lonely. Here was something I couldn’t share with anybody I knew, a secret imposed on me, a trust that made me an accomplice. His infidelity bothered me less than his need for it, and his choice of bed partners was vulgar and in poor taste. The whole thing seemed pathetic and demeaning, lacking in either excitement or dignity.

  I walked for a couple of miles in a fog. My mother was in Zahala, forever padding the nest, devoured by love for my father, and daily sacrificing herself, being our—his and mine—absolution. She must know it all, I thought. She loves him and makes love with him and cares for all his needs and she knows it all. The skinny and the plump, the French and the student, the woman officer and the journalist. Was her tolerance genuine—could she really not care, or regard it all as some physical need, a mid-life crisis, an insecurity hiding behind a macho wall
? Was she slowly being destroyed by him, desperate and in need? Did she have the strength to cope, or face up to things, or to quit? I had all the questions and didn’t want to know the answers. I was self-centered enough to be preoccupied by my own predicament. I wasn’t flattered by his choice of me as an ally; I wasn’t going to be his alibi or partner. I wasn’t jealous, or curious, and when I arrived home, I threw up the salad and the omelette in one violent spurt, and relieved myself of the slight nausea that accompanied the evening’s events.