Already some of our men had joined them, drowsy, bedraggled soldiers, laughing nervously, rolling up their sleeves and repeating the words of the prayer. They were blessing us. “A great victory,” they said. “Another great miracle, by the grace of God.” But it seemed they weren’t sure, their voices lacked conviction. This time we’d disappointed them a little.
The morning came and quickly the air grew warm. Men started to prepare breakfast, smoke rose from campfires. Transistors broadcast the morning news. And they, having finished their mission of awakening, folded up their equipment, the tefillin and the rest, sat down on a hillock, took out little cardboard boxes from their jeep and laid out their morning snack. We invited them to take breakfast with us, but they refused politely, bowing their heads, smiling to themselves. They had their own food. They were even afraid of touching our water bottles for fear of contamination. I went closer to them. From among their sacred objects, among the prayer books and tassels, they took out bread, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes and giant cucumbers. Sprinkling them with salt and eating them complete with the shell. From a big red thermos they were drinking some yellowish liquid, apparently cold tea that they’d brought with them from Israel. I stood and watched them, more and more fascinated. I’d forgotten that Jews like this still existed. The black hats, the beards and the side curls. They took off their jackets and sat in their white shirts, patches of colour not of this world. Two were adults, about forty years old, and between them sat a pretty youth with a sparse beard and very long side curls. He seemed a little shy and ill at ease in the middle of all the bustle, picking with a pale hand at his breakfast, which was laid out on an old religious newspaper.
I didn’t move away from them. They could feel me watching them. They smiled at me kindly. I took the tassel they offered me and put it in my pocket, still standing close beside them. They were eating, swaying backwards and forwards and chattering in Yiddish. I didn’t understand a single word but I could tell they were talking about politics. And I, a dirty, unkempt soldier, with a ten-day growth of beard, staring at them hard. I was beginning to make them uneasy.
Suddenly I said, “May I have a tomato?” They were astonished, they thought I’d gone mad. But the eldest recovered his composure and handed me a tomato. I sprinkled salt on it, sat down beside them and began asking questions. Where had they come from? What were they doing? How did they live? Where were they going from here? And they replied, the two older men, swaying all the while as if their answers too were a kind of prayer. Suddenly a thought struck me. These men are so free. They don’t really belong to us. They come and go at will. They have no obligations. Moving around like black beetles among the soldiers in the desert. Metaphysical creatures. I couldn’t leave them alone.
But the religious-affairs sergeant, who was acting as a sort of impresario for them, came to move them on. A bombardment was expected soon, they’d better leave. Immediately they stood up, buried the remains of their food, tied up their boxes with string and at fantastic speed mumbled the grace after meals, then they climbed into their jeep and disappeared from sight.
And on one of the rocks I found a black jacket that one of them, apparently the youngest, had left behind. I picked it up. It was made of good thick material. The label was of a tailor in Geulah Street, Jerusalem, guaranteed pure wool. It gave off a faint smell of sweat, but a sweat different from that of the men around me, a sweet smell of incense or tobacco, a smell of old books. For a moment I thought of throwing it back, then suddenly, without thinking, I put it on. It fit. “Does it suit me?” I asked a soldier who was passing. He stopped and stared, I could see he didn’t recognize me. Then he grinned and started to run.
And now there fell around us a bombardment unlike anything that we’d known before. We crouched on the ground, curled up like embryos, desperately scratching at the dry earth with our fingernails. The shells groped for us blindly, pounding angrily and accurately a crossroads only a hundred metres from us. Such a tiny miscalculation. For hours on end we lay in the sand, shells exploding all around us, eyes closed, dust in our mouths, beside us a burning halftrack.
Towards evening, silence returned as if nothing had happened. Deep silence. They moved us forwards five kilometres, to the foot of a hill, and once again we spread out our blankets to sleep.
And at first light, as if time were repeating itself, again we woke up to the sound of chanting and prayer and rhythmic hand clapping. The three of them had returned, as if they’d sprung from the ground, and they were trying to rouse us.
“You were here before! You were already here! You gave us prayer books!” They were silenced by the hostile reception. The three of them were frightened, froze where they stood and then retreated in confusion, mumbling among themselves in Yiddish. But one soldier leaped from his blankets and ran towards them, rolling up the sleeve of his left arm with an expression of pain, as if expecting an injection. Encouraged, the three men began binding tefillin on his arm, opening the prayer book in front of him, showing him what to read, tending him as if he were sick. Leading him a few steps forwards, a few steps back, making him sway in unison with them, turning him towards the east, to the rising sun. We lay in our sleeping bags and watched them. From a distance it looked like they were praying to the sun.
They finished, and once again they sat down to eat, as on the previous day, groping in their cardboard boxes and again bringing out eggs, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, as if they’d picked them in the desert. But this time they were no longer the centre of attention. The men had lost interest in them, still shaken by the bombardment of yesterday. Slowly I approached them, glanced in the open boxes. These no longer contained sacred objects, they’d given everything away yesterday. The boxes were full of booty they’d picked up, army belts, ammunition pouches, coloured pictures of Sadat, souvenirs for home.
And again, I was amazed at their freedom –
“How are you? Are you well?” I smiled at them, trying to start a conversation.
“The Lord be praised each day,” they replied. I could see they didn’t recognize me.
“Where are you going from here?”
“Home, with God’s help. To tell of the miracles and wonders.”
“What miracles? Don’t you realize what’s going on here?”
They were unmoved.
“By God’s grace, everything is a miracle.”
“Are you married?”
They smiled, surprised at the question.
“Praise the Lord.”
“Praise the Lord yes or no?”
“Praise the Lord … of course …”
Suddenly they recognized me.
“Have we not spoken with you before, sir?”
“Yes. Yesterday morning. Before the bombardment.”
“And how are you, sir?”
“So-so …”
I sat down beside them, in my hand the small knapsack in which the young man’s jacket was hidden. They shifted away slightly.
“Have you lost your jacket?” I asked the young man, who hadn’t spoken yet. He was wearing an Egyptian combat smock that he’d picked up somewhere.
“Yes,” he replied, with a thin, charming smile. “Perhaps you have found it?”
“No …”
“It doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, you are forgiven,” the older man reassured him.
And all the while they were eating with such ease, such assurance. I felt a growing attraction to them, it was painful.
The young man with the pretty face was daintily chewing his bread, ignoring me, picking up the crumbs with his thin delicate fingers, still reading that old religious newspaper spread out in front of him. They no longer had tea. They were passing a bottle from hand to hand, manna perhaps, or dew that they’d collected on their way. It was obvious they were content with little. Again I felt an urge to take something from them, a vegetable or a piece of bread. But in the end, without asking permission, I picked up the young man’s hat, which was lying in the sand, and pu
t it on my head. Then, to a rhythm of my own, I started swaying. They smiled, very embarrassed. Their faces went red. I could see they were a little scared of us, a little wary.
“Don’t you find it hot in these hats?”
“Praise the Lord.”
“Does it suit me?” I asked childishly.
“With God’s help … with God’s help.” They forced themselves to smile, bewildered, uncomprehending.
“Maybe we should exchange hats,” I said to the young man. “That way I shall remember you.”
He was utterly dumbfounded. Already he’d lost his jacket. Now somebody wanted to take his hat as well. But the eldest of the group gave me an intelligent, perceptive look, as if he’d grasped my intention even before I’d made up my own mind.
“By all means take it, sir … it will bring you good fortune … you shall return safely to your wife and children …”
“But I’m not married. I’m a lover.” Brazenly I challenged them. “I’m a lover of other men’s wives.”
The man of God didn’t lose his composure, but looked at me as if seeing me now for the first time.
“Then may you find your counterpart … return home safely.”
On the horizon plumes of dust were rising. A moment later, as if unconnected with them, came the boom of artillery. The start of the working day. Men began running. Again the shells came groping for me, trying to destroy me. The religious-affairs sergeant came running to move his party, to get them away from here. The camp was struck in haste, covered over with earth. At the side stood a party of soldiers starting to dig in. I hadn’t even had time to say goodbye.
Now I knew what I must do. I must escape. I could do it. I thought of nothing else all that day, crouched in a corner inside the half-track, keeping quiet, avoiding all unnecessary contact with the other men, trying to efface myself. It was a day of blazing heat, a thick dust cloud shut out the sky. The sun was hidden. Visibility, hopeless. All day the radio sets crackled as units tried desperately to locate one another. And covering everything, the yellow, menacing dust. We were advancing on the canal. They’d broken through to the other side and we were to join forces with the troops who were crossing the strip of water in a continuous column. Towards evening we dipped our hands in the bomb-racked waters. New officers arrived and told us what was planned for tomorrow.
But I was already well advanced in plans of my own. Clearly this was a war without end. What could I do on the west bank of the canal? Even on the east bank I’d found nothing useful to do.
So, stealthily, I made my preparations. I packed into a small knapsack the sacred objects that I’d collected over the last two days. Hat, black jacket, tassel. I prepared meat and cheese sandwiches, filled two water bottles. And in the night, in the last watch, when the time came for me to go on sentry duty, I took my equipment, went to the edge of the camp and slipped away behind a hill. I dug a shallow pit and buried the bazooka. I stripped off my army clothes, tore them to shreds with the bayonet and scattered the shreds in the darkness. I took from the knapsack my white civilian shirt and my black woollen trousers, put on the tassels and the stolen jacket, put the hat down beside me. I had a fortnight’s growth of beard, and from my tousled hair, which had grown wild, I could make rudimentary side curls.
So I sat in a cleft of the rock, not far from the canal, shivering with cold, watching the dim skies, which were lit up from time to time by explosions, waiting for the dawn, hearing them rouse the men of my unit, moving them on. I listened hard to hear if they were searching for me, if they were calling my name. But I heard nothing, only the hum of engines starting up. Nobody had noticed my absence.
For a moment I was astonished at being obliterated –
But I didn’t move from my hiding place. I sat and waited for the first signs of light, greedily finishing off the sandwiches that I’d brought with me for the next day. At last the light came, creeping around me like a mist. A rainy dawn, almost European. I hid the last remnant of my army life, the knapsack itself, shook the dust and sand from my clothes, trying to straighten them, to put some shape into them. Then I put the hat on my head and started walking out of history. Heading east.
Soon I found myself on a road, and before long there was the sound of a vehicle approaching from behind, a bullet-ridden water carrier, water still streaming from the holes. I was still hesitating, wondering whether to flag it down, when the vehicle stopped beside me. I climbed in. The driver, a thin Yemenite, showed no surprise at the figure clad in black who sat down beside him, as if the whole desert were full of religious Jews, springing out from among the hills, just like that.
Oddly enough he didn’t speak to me, not a single word. Perhaps he was running away too, perhaps he’d just now come under fire and was returning the way he came. I don’t think he even noticed what kind of person he’d picked up. The roadblocks gave us no problems. The military police didn’t even glance at us. They were busy with the transport coming from the opposite direction, with men trying to get through to the fighting zone, to the western shore of the canal.
In Refidim I got out, didn’t even have time to thank the driver. The confusion there was even greater than before. Men running, vehicles travelling in all directions. And I, so light I was nearly floating, already feeling the effects of freedom, began wandering about the base, quietly looking for the way north. But I noticed that people were turning their heads to stare at me. I was attracting attention, even in the crowd. Perhaps there was something unreligious in my bearing, or in the way I wore the hat. I grew more and more apprehensive, walking at the side of the road, shrinking, trying to keep out of sight among the storehouses and tank shelters. And suddenly, on one of the paths, there, straight in front of me, like in a nightmare, was the tall, bald-headed officer, erect as ever, thin as ever, still with that arrogant and empty look in his eyes. I nearly collapsed in front of him. But he passed by without recognizing me, continuing on his way with that same slow, provocative walk.
So I must have really changed, a change that I myself had not yet grasped. I stood hiding in the shadow of a wall, trembling with shock, watching him as he crossed to one of the shelters. Something blue caught my eye. Grandma’s car. I’d almost forgotten it.
Suddenly I resolved to liberate the car as well. Why not? I’d wait till it was dark and take the car with me. I made a mental note of my surroundings, so I could find the place again, and went to look for a synagogue in which to hide until evening.
The synagogue was deserted and dirty. It looked as if a squad of soldiers had been billeted there a few days before. Ammunition pouches were scattered on the floor. The ark was locked but there were a few prayer books lying on the shelves and in a little cupboard I found a bottle of wine for Kiddush.
And there I sat all day, alone, sipping the warm, sweet wine, glancing through a prayer book to familiarize myself with the first rudiments of prayer. My brain grew hazy, but I didn’t dare go to sleep, somebody might come in and surprise me. Towards midnight I left the synagogue, carrying a nylon sack full of prayer books. If anyone challenged me I could say I’d been sent to distribute prayer books to the troops. The base was quieter now, people moving about with less animation. I even came upon a soldier and a girl-soldier embracing. As if there were no such thing as a war.
The Morris was parked between two battered tanks. It was covered in dust. The doors were locked, but I remembered that one of the windows had a defective catch. And so I succeeded in getting inside. My hands trembled as I held the wheel, resting my head on it. It was as if an eternity had passed since I’d been parted from the car, not just a few days of war.
I’d already prepared a piece of silver paper taken from an old cigarette packet, and just as in the past, when I was taking the car at night without grandmother knowing, I bent down beneath the wheel and found the point of contact of the ignition wires. And the battery, the new battery that you’d fitted for me just a few weeks before, Adam, it responded at once to the light touch and set the
engine in motion.
And so I began to move – north, east, God knows. I had no sense of direction, I was just looking for signposts. I’d stop and ask which was the way back to Israel.
“Which Israel?” the military police would reply with a laugh.
“Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, just get me out of the desert.” The bulk of the transport was moving in the opposite direction. Tanks, artillery, giant ammunition trucks. A khaki river roaring along with dimmed lights. And I in the little car running against the tide, moving aside to the edge of the road and even so upsetting the smooth progress of the convoy. I heard the muffled curses – “Holy bastard, chooses this time to tour the Sinai” – but I didn’t respond, just smiled pleasantly, weaving in and out of the traffic, never pausing but pressing on all the time, as if possessed, speeding along the battered roads, away from the desert.
In the morning I reached the big canteen at Rafah, exhausted by the long drive but drunk with freedom. I went in to buy food, and went cavorting from counter to counter, drinking soup, eating sausages, munching chocolate and candies. Then among the crowd I saw a group of religious Jews, men dressed in black like myself, watching me curiously, astonished to see me eating so wildly, so anarchically, prancing from meat counter to dairy counter and back again. I decided it was time to leave. But at the door one of the religious Jews stopped me, clutched my shoulder.
“Wait a moment, we are forming a minyan for the morning prayer …”
“I prayed yesterday …” I broke away from his grasp and ran to the Morris, started the engine and fled, leaving them to their astonishment.
A few kilometres farther on, the desert ended abruptly, there were palm trees at the roadside, white houses, sand dunes ringed by little orchards. Israel. A wonderful smell of the sea. I slowed down, stopped. So – I’d escaped. Now I felt the full weight of my weariness, I felt dizzy, could hardly keep my eyes open. I left the car, breathed in the morning air. The smell of the sea enticed me. But where was the sea? Suddenly I wanted the sea, I needed to touch it. I waved down the speeding car of a tall senior officer who drew up beside me. “Where is the sea?” I asked. He was incensed at the question. But he showed me the way.
The Lover Page 38