by Edeet Ravel
Even with the hat and the clothes I’d be scared. But Coco is brave. She smiles at us and tries to explain what she’s doing but no one listens. We like the bees and the hives and Coco’s special hat but we’re a bit worried about getting stung.
Shoshana’s scared too. She laughs a little but she’s scared.
Another thing about Coco apart from her shaggy dog and the bees is that she planted a whole bed of Amnonand-Tamar flowers.54 I think I have to add Amnon-and-Tamar to my favourite flowers. Each flower has two colours—yellow and purple or light purple and dark purple. And they all look like velvet. Every time I see them I’m surprised that you can plant something so beautiful.
Coco is a good person to have on Eldar.
Diary of a Young Man
29 March 1922. A full moon—spring is here—yesterday we sat on the boulders and sang. The whole commune gathered together without the ringing of the bell, and everyone sang and sang— suddenly without knowing how or why, a circle came into being and the commune began to dance. We danced for hours without pause. Our legs rose on their own, shoulder adjoining shoulder, the entire commune poured into one great soul and danced.
2 April 1922. We do not cease to speak of the dance of that night. Will such a dance ever come again?
20 April 1922. Unbelievable, what those moshav [community of cooperative farms] people are capable of! Simply boggles the mind!
In the middle of today’s dance, at the height of our fervour and sense of closeness, a few moshav people who happened to be in the Dining Hall burst into the circle.
Instantly our singing ceased and we all left the circle, leaving the moshav people alone in the middle of the tent. And thus our celebration was cut short. What’s really interesting is that they don’t understand what ails us.
How can they not comprehend—the commune’s dance is an internal event, like the commune’s Meeting, and a stranger cannot have any part of it.
Dori
Daddy can touch the tip of his nose with his tongue. That’s very hard to do. He also has a gold tooth.
I can stand on my head up to 100 if I have a pillow and it’s near a wall.
My brother David can move his ears. He’s the only person on Eldar who can do that. He also knows Everybody Loves Saturday Night in six languages. There was a talent show on the ship from Canada and he got up on stage and sang that song in all six languages.
I don’t know what Mummy can do.
Our First Year
2 October 1949. I think back now to the earlier months of the year, when we looked with such wonderment and anticipation at the clean fig trees with their hard, green knobs popping out like buttons at the ends of the branches, when we kept trying to conjure forth the taste and shape of the ripe fruit.
Now those little green knobs attack our eyes as heaps of yellow, split, spoiling fruit, and behind each yellow conidial blotch leers the image of an ideologically compromised Arab. The stuff was ripening, splitting, falling, and terrifying us by the ton (the fig harvest is a countrywide problem), but now we’ve got the situation under control.
Dori
The older children are picking peas. We can pick too if we want but we aren’t really supposed to eat the peas because they’re for selling to people outside of Eldar. It’s hard to resist though. Peas straight from the pod are delicious.
The older children tell us to go play. I run around with Lulu and then I go to the Room. Daddy isn’t there. No one’s there. I go back down to look for him. Coco opens her window and says Daddy can’t see me today because he has a bad back.
And Mummy went away for two days to a conference! Daddy was all I had!
I sit on the step and cry my heart out. I have the same feeling I had last time when Shoshana caught me and the same hiccups when I try to stop. My whole heart is breaking and my stomach too. There’s no one to take me to the Children’s House so finally Shoshana comes and drags me.55
Thane of Eldar
In years to come, I shall be glad to be unwept, unchallenged and unsung. Farewell, dust! Farewell, Eldar!
Dori
One thing I do not like is steam houses. On the beach in Camp Bilu’im there was a steam house on the beach. I wasn’t allowed in there but I begged and begged and in the end David let me in. I sat on a bench in a tiny room. The smell made me sick and the steam made me sick. I yelled let me out! And I ran out and never went in there again.
What I like is the tall brown stove in the Room in winter. It has little holes and you can put your cheek against the metal and warm up. It has a such nice smell.
I love the light inside a flashlight or any kind of light inside glass. I saw a red light inside glass here on Eldar but I never found out what it was. Light inside glass is magic and real at the same time.
Stove
Dori
Mummy is taking me to the city! Just the two of us all day long. She says she has a surprise for me there.
A lot of Arab women get on the bus with their baskets. Mummy laughs every time the bus bumps because it makes us jump up in our seats. I laugh with her. She peels an orange and gives me half because we left before breakfast. She says pelah56 pelah Metushelah which doesn’t mean anything—it just rhymes. Usually words that don’t mean anything are for babies but everyone says pelah pelah Metushelah. Even my brother David.
Mummy has to go to an office. It takes a long time. I play with my sunhat but there isn’t much you can do with a sunhat. When we’re finished Mummy says you were so patient! I say I wasn’t patient at all and she laughs very hard. I don’t know why exactly.
We go to a toilet to pee because later there might not be a toilet. It isn’t very clean but Mummy brought pieces of newspaper in her purse and she puts them on the seat so we won’t catch any germs. Then we wash our hands with soap. Mummy says with soap you don’t have to worry who touched it.
On the street I see a woman with very puffed hair. I say, look Mummy she has a cake on her head! and Mummy says shhh so the woman won’t hear but she smiles. She says now I have a surprise for you—we’re going to see a Tarzan movie.
I can’t believe it! Now I’m the happiest girl in the world. The happiest girl who ever lived in the whole wide world.
We go into the cinema. The seats are made of wood and they bounce up unless you hold them. Mummy holds the seat down for me. It goes up a bit when I sit on it because I’m not heavy enough but I don’t mind. The movie starts. First there’s a monkey and then an elephant brings Tarzan a log. Then a boy sweeps the floor. He sweeps all the dirt under a carpet.
Mummy leans over and whispers look how he sweeps! So then I know it’s a joke and I laugh.57
The boy is Tarzan’s son. Mummy explains the movie to me but two big girls keep turning around to look at us and Mummy says we’re bothering them.
I don’t mind not understanding everything. It’s still the best movie in the world with the handsomest man in the world.
When the movie is over Mummy says out loud the end. The sun outside hurts my eyes and I have to cover them. Mummy says I think I’m ready for the beach! This is turning out to be the best day of my life.
On the way to the beach Mummy sees some stairs going down. She’s very curious about where they go. She says should we go see where those stairs lead? and I say yes and she says but then we’ll have to climb back up. She decides to go down anyhow. So we go down but when we get to the bottom there are more stairs! She can’t decide again.
Finally she decides to go down those stairs too. But when we get to the end there are even more stairs! Mummy says well that’s it and we go back up without ever finding out what was there. She was right about going up. It’s much harder than going down.
We walk to the beach and Mummy pays for a beach chair. She takes a bathing suit out of her bag and helps me put it on. She says you can play in the water but stay on the foam and she lies down on the chair and goes to sleep.
I sit on the soft foam and feel it with my fingers. I let the waves go over my
legs. I look out at the sea and get the abracadabra feeling. That huge feeling of longing for something in the future. The longing makes me think of the song—
Oh the deep blue of the sea
Jerusalem I long for thee
Only the beginning of the song is beautiful. Then it changes and gets stupid.
I dig holes in the wet sand and collect pretty shells. I shake the shells in my hands. My favourites are the twisty ones with the pointy edge. I love the beach.
A man comes by yelling Artik Artik. He has a big box tied to his neck. Mummy wakes up and asks for two lemon Artiks. Lemon Artiks are much better than the popsicles in Canada. They’re softer and sweeter and more lemony. You have to eat them fast though. Otherwise they fall apart and drip on everything.
Mummy looks at her watch and says we have to go back. She isn’t happy about going back. I take off my bathing suit and get dressed. Mummy sings—
To Israel we came
Because we’re insane
and I laugh. The song is supposed to be—
To Israel we came
To plant and sow grain
Mummy laughs with me. We laugh all the way to the bus.
Diary of a Young Man
25 May 1922. An event perpetrated by the “Night Group” yesterday stirred up a great deal of anger among some of our families. When they woke up in the morning they saw the hut of the empty Children’s House, which we have just built, had been rearranged to resemble the room of a petit-bourgeois family: two neatly made beds with slippers placed beneath them; on the husband’s bed a pipe and various accessories typical of a petit-bourgeois family room.
The message is clear: families are beginning to isolate themselves from the life of the greater family—the commune.
Strong feelings have been aroused, and the behaviour of the “Night Group” is being labelled tactless, truly brutish! R. even cried at this piece of mischief.
15 June 1922. Our road work has ended and we have been moved to Nahalal to drain malaria-producing swamps. The hammer and chisel have been replaced by picks and shovels, highly unromantic tools.
Our work is so demanding that our Meetings are taken up entirely by discussions related to work. It can be quite boring. Isn’t it enough that we have to work all day, do we also have to discuss it at night?
But there are those among us, not many, for whom matters of work and economics are more important than the internal social life of the commune.
16 June 1922. For a while there have been rumours that some members consider a few other members unsuited to the commune.
Yesterday at the Meeting this rumour was brought out into the open by way of one person’s demand that 48 members be asked to leave, of our total of 80—among them founders of the commune who have been here since its inception.
He listed the 48 members. There was a big hue and cry and his suggestion was condemned, even though secretly there are those who support him. Thus the 48 are staying and now divisiveness has been created. Altogether, this member has extraordinary ideas.
Dori
Hang down your head Tom Dooley!
Hang down your head and cry!
Hang down your head Tom Dooley!
Poor boy you’re bound to die!
Met her on the mountain!
There I took her life!
Met her on the mountain!
Stabbed her with my knife!
Hang down your head Tom Dooley!
Hang down your head and cry!
Hang down your head Tom Dooley!
Poor boy you’re bound to die!
Thy Neck with Chains of Gold
michael You want to know something, Rita—there is no love—
only dreams, infatuations, and sex. The day you want
to kill yourself for someone, you’ll know it’s love, and
there’s no one in this whole damn world I want to die
for. So I may as well be married to Marina. She’s good
for me. There’s only one thing worth giving your life for,
and that’s an ideal. An ideal you can shape and control.
But people—are nothing. They betray you from the day
you’re born.
Dori
I’m putting on my socks next to Gilead’s bed. He shows me a razor blade. He says his father gave it to him even though I thought he didn’t have a father but maybe he does. He says my father uses it for shaving. He says razors don’t hurt when they cut you and I say I don’t believe you and he says want to bet? I say ok. We shake hands and do Abraham Isaac Jacob and he cuts the leg that doesn’t have the sock on yet.
Blood comes pouring out! I scream and Shoshana comes and takes me over to the window and wraps a bandage around my leg but the blood goes right through the bandage. I’m screaming my head off.
Shoshana finds someone to carry me to the Room. Daddy and Mummy come in and kiss me but I’m still screaming. Dafna the nurse comes in and gives me a needle like Skye had when the dog bit her. Daddy asks me if I want a candy and I nod. I suck on the candy and feel better. More people come into the Room and leave.
Daddy says we’re calling the doctor to see if he can come to Eldar but if he can’t we’ll have to go to the hospital in Safed. I really really don’t want to go to the hospital.
Mummy comes in and says the doctor can’t come— we’ll have to drive to Safed. I say will you come with me? and Daddy says of course dollie we’ll all come with you.
We drive in the back seat of a truck. In Canada one time I was coming home with Mummy and suddenly we saw an ambulance. Right on Davaar Street. Mummy said let’s go see what’s going on and I said no no don’t go! But she went anyhow and she said oh no it’s grandpa! I didn’t understand how it could be my grandfather when it could have been anyone. If only she’d listened to me! But it would have been my grandfather no matter what. So then we had to drive in the ambulance with my grandfather and when we got to the hospital Mummy found a phone on the wall and called Daddy. I began to cry and she turned to me and said in a very worried voice what is it? I was surprised that she was asking what is it? but I could see she felt bad and I didn’t want to make her feel worse so I stopped crying.
I’m not crying now either. I’m happy to be with Mummy and Daddy in a truck. I’m sitting on Daddy’s lap.
We get to the hospital. It’s crowded with people on chairs and beds and it doesn’t look very clean. Mummy says this is where you were born. It bothers me that she wasn’t alone and that she gave birth in a dirty hospital.
Dafna the nurse pulls a curtain so no one can see us. The doctor is an old man. I say just tell him not to put on anything that burns! So Daddy tells the doctor even though he doesn’t want to. Everyone tells me how good I am but I’m not good. I’m making sounds even though nothing burns and nothing hurts. I’m just making them so people will worry about me.
The doctor tells Daddy something and Daddy says this is going to burn a little and I say all right because they told me. It only burns for a second. Dafna leans over me so I won’t see and she tells the doctor what to do.58
The doctor gives me seven stitches. We drive back and I fall asleep on Daddy’s lap.
Daddy carries me to the Children’s House. I wake up on the way.
I’m worried about Gilead. Who knows what Shoshana did to him? She must have hit him even harder than Lulu.
Everyone is quiet in the Children’s House and I can tell it’s because something horrible happened. Even though Gilead didn’t do it on purpose. He thought it was safe.
Mummy and Daddy help me get into pyjamas. They kiss me goodnight and leave. No one says anything. It’s never been this quiet in the Children’s House.
The truth is it wasn’t such a bad day. My parents stayed with me the whole time. The stitches didn’t hurt and I like Dafna. My parents like her too. Everyone was nice to me.
I only feel bad about Gilead. And now he’ll think I don’t like him.
Our First Year
16 Nov
ember 1949. The figs have dropped almost all their leaves; they are now a sooty grey network of reaching, pointing branches, the buds like sharpened little fingertips. The vines are almost barren, bent over the stakes, or spread out and exposed as if in defeat, seeming as old and angularly weather-beaten as the middle-aged Arab women.
Dori
It’s Purim. I didn’t want to be boring Queen Esther but that’s what I am. I have a dress and a crown and Mummy puts lipstick on my lips.
All I can think about the whole time is not licking my lips. I’m afraid the lipstick is poison. Mummy comes over and says do you want me to take the lipstick off? I nod and she wipes it off with a handkerchief.