The Last Rain

by Edeet Ravel

  MICHAEL

  Ah, here you are, sweetheart.

  MARINA

  You were looking for me, Michael?

  MICHAEL

  Yeah, you weren’t in the room, so I figured you’re here.

  MARINA

  (nods skeptically) Sure …

  MICHAEL

  Yeah, sure. (kisses her cheek, puts the knapsack on the

  table, slaps RICKY’s back in comradely fashion. During

  his speech he puts his rifle on RICKY’s book.) Did I have a

  day. You wouldn’t believe it.

  MARINA

  No, I wouldn’t.

  MICHAEL

  On the way to town, just as I’m taking one of those

  beautiful curves, I see something black on the road. I

  jam on the brakes and nearly fly off into the valley. And

  right there in front of me—a flock of goats—and the

  poor Arab kid is having a hell of a time getting them off

  the road. To make a long story short, when Eli finds out

  how many eggs were smashed, he’ll have a fit. Anyhow,

  I’m almost in Tel Aviv and wham—a flat. But no tra-

  gedy. Kibbutz Atar came to the rescue. They check my

  spare but it’s no damn good so they give me a tire. I

  ask how much we owe them and the secretary says they

  don’t expect our kibbutz to pay for anything. We still

  owe them twenty-one work-days from the time they

  helped us install our electricity. So—I get to Tel Aviv

  with broken eggs and I bump into Ramona. (to RICKY)

  She’s as cute as ever—and she says she’s lonesome for

  the kibbutz.

  MARINA

  I bet.

  MICHAEL

  So I tell her to come back and she says she visited once

  (to MARINA) and got the cold shoulder. So I bought her

  a sundae to cheer her up … on the way back I drop in to

  see my friend the Mukhtar. We have some roast lamb

  and a drink. It’s very important to keep on cordial rela-

  tions with our Arab neighbours—so I had another

  drink. But just as I was leaving, the lousy truck stalls.

  I check the tires and I find the one Atar gave me is no

  good. The bastards! Just because we owe them twenty-

  one work days. So a tow truck takes me to the garage.

  They fix me up, and that’s why I was late. And how was

  your day, Marina?

  Dori

  Daddy has to work in the Kitchen all day today so I can’t see him until bedtime. Mummy is in the Room but she’s busy with my sister Sara. I lie on the floor and look at the black book of paintings. I love that book. I simply love it.

  My favourite painting is the one of the woman falling out of the tiger’s mouth. There are bones and snakes spilling out too. I asked Daddy what the painting was about and he said it was a dream but I could tell he only said that because he didn’t know how to explain it. I don’t think he likes that painting very much.24

  I look at it for a long time. Then I find the beautiful painting with the gas station. I like it as much as the tiger one. I want to be right inside that painting.25

  After that I go in order. Some pictures are boring and I skip them. Others are very interesting. I try to figure out their story.

  I ask Daddy which painting he likes best. He says he likes them all but I keep asking so he looks at the pictures and chooses the one that has two soldiers helping a woman nurse her baby. One soldier holds his canteen to her mouth and the other soldier helps her hold up the baby. She was probably dying but the soldiers saved her.26

  I like canteens. My brother David has one. The water inside it tastes like metal. When I’m a soldier I’ll carry a canteen wherever I go.

  Our First Year

  19 January 1949. The mosque was blown up today. Cloudy, drab day with bitter wind but no rain. A small group of us stood off to one side, way out of danger, with a beautiful view of the western wadi behind us, and this looming, softly curved and mysterious monument of a culture which none of us even begins to understand rising before us, its fate doomed within a matter of seconds.

  There was a shattering explosion which shot a bolt of shock through each of us, wrenching our bodies with tension, and then the dome seemed to rise slowly into the grey sky, like a giant eggshell, with the steel reinforcing rods mangled and twisting out from the sides; it fell in pieces into the mass of earth and rubble and flying stone which was once the prince of Eldar’s skyline.

  Dori

  Mummy takes my sister Sara to the Children’s House. Then she comes back and we sing songs from a book I like. It’s called Uga Uga. I know all the songs except for the train song which doesn’t have a tune.

  The pictures in the book are pretty but there’s one I don’t understand. It’s for I’ve Been to Yemen—

  I’ve been to Yemen

  And very soon

  The little black boy I met there

  Will be Ruthie’s groom

  In the picture a little black boy in red and white shorts and a Yemenite hat is handing flowers to a much bigger girl in a wedding dress. It’s only pretend so why is the boy dressed like someone from Yemen and why is he so little and why is Ruthie wearing a wedding dress and why is there a mosque like in Yemen and why is he black? I asked Mummy but she didn’t understand the problem.27

  We sing all the songs in the book and then Mummy takes me back to the Children’s House. I don’t beg for more time because with Mummy when it’s time it’s time and if you beg for more songs she only says next time.

  At least she doesn’t laugh with Shoshana the way Daddy does.

  Baby Diary

  July 7

  She gets a bottle at night every second night. Today she followed Naftali’s finger. And the next day [sic] she looked at a toy. I now have to rock her bed after almost every feeding. She moans, kvetches, lifts her head—after light rocking she falls asleep. Between the third and fourth feeding she wakes up and cries and gets water and she falls asleep again. That happens every day at 5:00. Her bellybutton is already dry and perfectly fine.

  During the day, at almost every feeding, Naftali comes to visit. She still eats every four hours and sleeps well during the day and is gaining nicely.

  Dori

  Shoshana is in a very bad mood today. For supper we have leben and cold beet soup and rice with carrots and cheese triangles. I can’t decide if I like the cheese triangles or not. I like unwrapping them but I don’t know if I like eating them.

  We decide to have a contest to see who can have the pinkest pee. The more beet soup you drink, the pinker your pee is. We’re going to check everyone’s pee tonight to see who wins.

  Dessert is apple sauce with cinnamon but everyone’s too full from all the beet soup.

  Shoshana gets angry that no one’s eating their apple sauce. We can tell there’s trouble coming but we don’t know what it is.

  Letter to the Editor

  29 March 1961

  I read with interest the article by K. Shabtai on Jews in Canada, including what Pomerantz, Editor of the Toronto Yiddish paper The Forward, had to say. As Pomerantz based his harsh words on the book by Naftali Satie, Between the Motion and the Act (or, according to him, Between the Movement and the Act), which he criticized and did not correctly evaluate in my opinion, I feel it incumbent upon me to right the wrong.

  He wronged the author, first and foremost. Naftali Satie is one of the founders of Eldar, which borders on Lebanon. A year ago he finished writing Between the Motion and the Act and approached Vantage Press, which published it, not in paperback but in attractive hardback format. As soon as the book appeared it aroused great interest in Canada’s literary and artistic community.

  Pomerantz, and following him Shabtai, were shocked for some reason by the scene of coupling in the Christian cemetery in Montreal
. Because Shabtai didn’t read the book, my comments are directed mainly at Pomerantz. Firstly, the girl he refers to as a Christian prostitute is actually the young man’s Jewish girlfriend. Secondly, they do not desecrate the grave of a youth killed in the war, but in fact weep over it. Finally, they do not have sex on the grave, or even near it.

  If Pomerantz had read the book more objectively, and with a little less fear of “what the goyim will say,” maybe he would have grasped its symbolic meaning. If an author attempts to expose, reveal and demonstrate, he must do so without arrogance, and if the Communists who left the Zionist movement are depicted as undergoing a spiritual crisis brought on by a lack of direction, then that is the way things are and nothing will come of silence.

  —Zeev Tchornitski, Davar

  Dori

  The trouble comes. It mostly comes for Lulu.

  We’re all brushing our teeth at the sinks. Shoshana notices that Lulu isn’t there. She’s already in the bedroom putting on her pyjamas. Shoshana says Lulu did you brush your teeth? Lulu says yes. Shoshana checks Lulu’s toothbrush and it’s dry.

  She grabs Lulu’s arm and pulls her back to the room with the sinks and yells at her is this toothbrush wet? is it wet? feel it feel it! is it wet? Shoshana makes us feel the toothbrush. We’re standing next to the wall and she asks us one by one to feel it and tell her if it’s wet. We don’t want to say but we have no choice. Shoshana yells at Lulu you lied to me you lied to me! She slaps Lulu twice on her face. Then she pulls her hair and throws her on the floor and begins to kick her with her sandal. Lulu screams. Shoshana kicks and yells you lied. If anyone on Eldar saw this they’d throw Shoshana out. But no one sees. No one but us.

  Skye doesn’t see either. She escaped to the bedroom when the trouble started.

  No one says anything after Shoshana leaves. I suck my finger. Only instead of my eye or my ear the soft thing I touch tonight is my jinnie.

  I wait and wait for my goodnight kiss. Finally Daddy comes. I’m so happy to see him! I sit up in bed and reach out my arms to him. He hugs me and kisses me and says he’s sorry he missed me when I visited. He says goodnight doda sweet dreams. I tell him Shoshana hit Lulu but he only smiles and doesn’t say anything.

  Daddy doesn’t really believe me. He has to believe me because he thinks you have to respect children but I can tell that even though he respects me and wants to believe me he doesn’t believe me.

  The truth is that Mummy once hit me too. It was in the house on Davaar Street.

  I loved the house on Davaar Street. There was a long long hall with the kitchen at the end and there was a living room with a big window and a television and a record player and a couch. Mummy and Daddy slept in a bedroom that was right next to the bedroom I shared with my brother David. Their bed was between two doors. I don’t know why that bedroom had two doors. They both led to the same place.

  At first I could do whatever I wanted in Canada. But then Mummy took me to a building and inside there was a room and inside the room there were a lot of crowded children. A very old woman came over and said shalom Dori. That was all the Hebrew she knew. The rest was in English.

  Mummy said goodbye and left me there. The children were wild and I didn’t know them so when no one was looking I ran out of the room and out of the building and back to our house.

  When Mummy saw me she put me on her lap and spanked me. I cried so hard I began to choke and Mummy had to bring me water. She said I mustn’t cross the street alone ever again. I don’t know why. I can see if there’s a car. It’s not as if Mummy can see and I can’t see. We both see the same.

  If Daddy knew Mummy hit me he’d be angry. But I never told him.

  First Day of School

  Dori

  When I wake up I need Desitin on my jinnie. Shoshana puts it on. For some reason she isn’t angry this morning. She’s being nice to me.

  We make our bed and have breakfast. Breakfast is always the same—bread and jam and either oatmeal or semolina or eggs or wheat puffs and milk.

  Any egg is fine with me as long as it’s not soft-boiled. I’d rather die than eat the white of a soft-boiled egg. I don’t mind scrambled or omelette or fried or hard-boiled mashed with margarine. For fried I don’t mind if the yellow is soft. I just don’t like when the white is soft. The white is a whole different story.

  After breakfast an adult comes to talk to us about Passover. She tells us the story of Moses freeing the slaves. Everyone has to be equal. No one’s allowed to make another person a slave. We sing—

  Sweet spring

  Sweet spring

  Passover

  You bring

  Not a very interesting song. Not a very good tune either. Then we sing—

  We were slaves

  And now and now and now and now

  And now we’re free

  That one’s better because you can shout it. Then we sing about Eliyahu the Grape.28 I guess he’s the person in charge of the grapes. And then we learn a new song in Aramaic dezabenababitreizuzei and we all start laughing and getting wild so the adult tells us to draw pictures of spring to decorate the Dining Hall. We draw some pictures and run outside to play.

  Our First Year

  21 January 1949. The blowing up of the mosque has had its effect on us. No one views the incident with other than mixed feelings, but the army and the government were insistent and needless to say they have the last word. After innumerable considerations involving the significance of destroying this chief building and symbol of the village, most of us agree now that it had to be done. It would have been a useless gesture to preserve this symbol of a population that showed itself to be, when one views the thing factually and unsentimentally, our hardened enemies whom we have no intention of permitting to return.

  The whole appearance of the village has undergone a transformation. It’s now a mass of ruins, and yet most of us agree it’s better this way. The hovels, the filth, the medieval atmosphere— it’s gone now, for the most part. Bring on the bulldozers and let’s plant trees!

  Dori

  I climb the monkey bars outside the Children’s House. I used to be afraid to hang with only my legs but now I can. Daddy helped me. He held my legs and when I was ready I told him to let go. It was easy in the end.

  The sky is beautiful and blue. Everyone is playing tag. I like it alone on top of the monkey bars. I can see everything. I’m going to be a writer and that means I need to see things. I need to see what people are doing and figure out what they are thinking.

  I see my brother David going somewhere with his friends Noam and Amnoni. They’re going in the direction of the carpentry shop. I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking about how much fun they’re going to have.

  A Good Vantage Point

  Dori

  Lulu runs over and climbs halfway up the monkey bars to tell me something. Her father is going on a special trip to Gush Halav after lunch and we’re allowed to come with him. Only a few children are allowed. My brother David and Noam and Amnoni are coming too. Noam is Lulu’s brother. We all have to meet at the chicken coop after lunch.

  Gush Halav is an Arab village. It’s called Jish in Arabic. So far I’ve only seen it from the road.

  Lunch takes a long time. The tomatoes are mushy and the cucumbers are bitter.29 I put a slice of tomato on my head. Lulu laughs and puts a slice of cucumber on her head. Someone else is giving us lunch today so we can do whatever we want.

  Dessert is bread and jam. We don’t want to be late so we fold the bread and eat it on the way out. Then we run down to the chicken coop.

  Baby Diary

  July 10

  For three days she had five feedings. But each time I got up at 4:00 to feed her. I took her outside for the first time and the next day I gave her her first bath. She responded nicely and lay comfortably and quietly in the tub.

  And then I took her for a walk. Every day after the third feeding at around 5:00 she wakes up. I give her water and wait another hour for fo
od. She has a rash on her face. I’m worried.

  Dori

  Well here we are in Gush Halav. Or Jish. We’re sitting on two benches in the back of a truck. The back of the truck doesn’t have a roof. It was windy riding here even though there’s no wind when you stand still.

  An old Arab man comes over to our truck and gives us a honeycomb. He’s very smiley and excited. We take the honeycomb which makes the man even more smiley and excited. There isn’t much honey on it but it’s fun to suck.

  Lulu’s father goes away to talk to someone. The houses in Jish look poor. The windows don’t have glass or screens so I don’t know how they keep the bugs out. There’s a pretty well on one side and a donkey tied to a tree. I like wells.

  David says they don’t even have bathrooms. He says they have to go in holes in the ground.