Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

  Dizengoff leapt to his feet, his eyes two embers glowing with shock and anger. Before Haim could react, the little man slapped him across the face.

  Haim stared down at Dizengoff. He was twice the older man’s size and could easily snap him in two. Of course he did no such thing, but merely touched his tingling cheek while gazing with wonder at Dizengoff.

  He glanced at the others around the table. Mr. and Mrs. Glaser were clearly disapproving, but to his relief Rosie seemed just as bewildered as he was at Dizengoff’s astounding behavior. Granted his words had been harsh; never could Haim have imagined that they possessed the power to shatter Dizengoff’s composure.

  Dizengoff slumped back into his chair and leaned on the table, his face buried in his hands.

  “Rosie,” Glaser whispered, “take Haim outside for a walk, please.”

  Haim felt Rosie’s hand around his wrist, leading him away. Outside Haim breathed a relieved sigh as the cool darkness wrapped around him and the breeze soothed the hot flush of shame and perplexity.

  “What happened back there, Rosie?”

  They were heading for the beach. “You said a number of awful things.” She tried to sound accusing, but her heart wasn’.t in it. “I know what you mean, Haim. I’ve never seen Meir like that. Certainly I recognize his anger and impatience, but never has anybody broken him this way.”

  “Some accomplishment. I’ve hurt an important man and probably soured your father on the idea of our marriage.”

  “Damnit, Haim.” Rosie spun on him like a tigress. “It should have occurred to you that I’m the one to decide whom I shall marry—if I marry anyone. Despite my father’s fondest wish I am not one of the beautiful, silent women in his paintings.”

  She ran off to vanish over the crest of a sand dune. Haim pursued her, calling out her name, not knowing whether she could hear his cries or if the crashing surf drowned them out.

  The harbor was mist-shrouded. The stars were hidden, while the veiled moon hung like a pearl against the yellow-streaked blue-black evening sky. The air was damp with the briny smell of the sea and the sand beneath Haim’s shoes squeaked and crunched as he sprinted after Rosie. By the time he caught up with her she was at the water’s edge.

  Chapter 8

  “Look at me,” Haim commanded. As Rosie obeyed he reached for her and squeezed her like a drowning man his lifeline; then he eased off and held her gently. The foamy swash swirled around their ankles, but they paid no attention. He kissed her for the first time and heard himself softly moan as her fragrant mouth yielded to his. Her lips were cool on that sultry night, while her cheeks were warm, damp, salty. He was tasting her tears.

  She pulled away to turn her back on him, as was her way. Haim, who had felt her heart pound at his kiss, now saw before him a quivering, barely tame creature about to bolt.

  He stood frustrated, helpless; his own thick passion made it impossible to think clearly. Then the realization came, and when it did it was like a lightning flash during a night storm.

  She is all things to me, he thought, my lifeline, my treasure, but I cannot own her.

  Yol’s parting words came back to Haim. “Once you marry Rosie, you will have to share your dream.”

  “Listen to me,” he called to Rosie. “I’m ready to understand. I want to.” He swallowed hard. “But first I’ve got to know. What are your feelings for me?”

  “I do love you,” Rosie said. “I did a little bit that first time we saw each other on this beach.”

  “A little bit?”

  “To be swept off of my feet like a fairy-tale princess is not how I am. You said you were ready to understand. Please don’t act like my father.” Her voice began to rise. “He’s far happier with my portrait than with his flesh and blood.”

  “All right, all right.” Haim hesitated, glancing at her sideways. “Do you want to get married?”

  Rosie stared back at him for a moment and then started to laugh. “Yes, love, eventually.” She wagged her finger at him. “But not for a while, and not ever if you can’t accept the fact that I intend to continue my work with Meir.”

  “What’s going on with that?”

  “You might have found out if you hadn’t picked a fight with him. Come, we’ll sit on the dry sand and I’ll tell you.”

  They walked back the way they’d come and chose a spot where they could lean against the base of a sand dune. Haim stretched out his arm and felt his heart quicken as Rosie nestled against him.

  She began to tell him about the meeting at the Yeshurun Club a little over a year ago. She wasn’t there, but her father was, in common with more than a hundred of the most influential Jews in Jaffa. The idea of establishing a garden suburb outside of noisy, crowded Jaffa had been in the air for some time. Many ideas had been put forth, but it took the Yeshurun meeting to found Ahuzzat Bayit, a house builders’ society.

  Meanwhile, the Jewish establishment in Jaffa had strengthened with the openings of the Lewinsky Seminary for women teachers and local offices of both the Anglo-Palestine Bank and the Zionist Organization. The latter controlled the purse strings of the crucial Jewish National Fund. Meir Dizengoff, a founder of the now-defunct Geulah Company, a land-buying group, headed up the steering committee. Rosie volunteered to be Dizengoff’s personal secretary.

  Haim kept nodding, doing his best to pay attention, but her words were a feeble distraction as compared to the scent of her and the feel of her warm thigh pressed against his.

  “Haim, the bayit has bought the land,” she said. “It is north of the town, and there will be empty space between Jaffa and the settlement. It will be a true suburb, the first of its kind in Palestine, and I will play a crucial role in its building.”

  “Rosie, we could go away from Jaffa—”

  “Never!”

  “We could play a crucial role elsewhere in the country, and as Zionists, not capitalists.”

  “You could, Haim. You, but not I. I would be the mother of your children, I would keep your house, but how would that be a significant contribution to this country?”

  Her voice softened. “Oh, Haim, I said I loved you a little bit when we first met. That love deepened every day as I gazed at your likeness. Remember how you once told me you had to finish your work in Jerusalem so that one day our children could be shown the school their father had helped to build?”

  Haim made a face. “And that’s how you feel about your work with Dizengoff? You want to leave your mark, is that it?”

  She smiled. “You do understand me.”

  “It will take years.”

  “But we can be married and—” She seemed to decide something. “Haim, what I said before about never leaving Jaffa? That isn’t true. When this is done, we can go wherever you’d like.”

  Haim frowned. In a few years it could well be too late to live the adventure that he and Yol had spent so many late nights talking about. In a few years Palestine might be so tame there would be no need for the Hashomer. He would only be able to envy Yol and his comrades when they recounted their exploits.

  “Please accept, Haim, for both our sakes. You have your whole life to do important things. For a woman such a chance comes only once if at all.”

  “Out from under your father’s shadow, is that it, Rosie?”

  “Is it so terrible? I love him, you know, but is it so terrible to want to accomplish something that will make him respect me? I can no longer be his little girl and I have no intention of becoming yours.”

  Haim sighed. “I wonder what sort of work there is in Jaffa.”

  “Oh, I imagine we can find you something,” Rosie whispered. She pressed his fingers against her lips. Her sable eyes were shiny. “Maybe we should go back?”

  “Yes,” Haim agreed. “It’s late.”

  They strolled back to the inn with their arms around each other. Halfway there Rosie stopped to kiss him once again. “I’ll never forget the sacrifice you’re making for me.”

  “I’ll be around to remind you,
don’t worry,” Haim said huskily.

  They continued along the slate path to the inn’s front door. As they waited there for Kamel to admit them, a figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Dizengoff, without his jacket and tie and with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. Briefly Haim thought the man had come to challenge him to a fight.

  “I thought you’d have gone home by now, Meir,” Rosie said nervously.

  “I waited,” Dizengoff said. “Haim, could we talk?” When Haim glanced at Rosie, the older man continued, “Come on, just me and you in the side garden. I want to tell you some things. I’m ashamed of the way I acted at the table tonight.”

  Haim felt Rosie squeeze his hand reassuringly. “Yes, Meir,” he said evenly. “Let’s talk.”

  They waited until Rosie was safely inside the house and then walked around the building to the side garden. Dizengoff led Haim to a stone bench beneath a fragrant orange tree.

  “Here, sit,” the older man rasped, wearily lowering himself onto the bench.

  Haim took the other end. He glimpsed Dizengoff’s suit jacket, neatly folded. Freed of its restraints, Dizengoff’s starched shirt collar flapped in the breeze. “How long has it been since you took that herring from around your neck?” Haim gestured at the tie folded over the back of the bench.

  Dizengoff eyed Haim and shook his head. “Youth,” he grumbled. “The young always think they’re the first to come upon the earth, like Adam—”

  “Pardon me. I obviously upset you during our argument at dinner, but if you brought me here for a lecture, I’d just as soon—”

  “You’re much better at lecturing than I, my boy, and as for upsetting me?” Dizengoff shrugged. “Yes, you did.”

  “For that I apologize.”

  Dizengoff looked at him and nodded. “I appreciate that, but I have to apologize as well. Lucky for me you’re a nice boy, else I’d be in the infirmary right now.”

  Haim chuckled. “I would never raise my hand to you.”

  “I know that. Now listen. Remember I told you about the bottle plant I tried to set up at Tantura? Well, my wife Zina came with me. During the mosquito season she was one of the first—but hardly the last—to come down with malaria. She was pregnant. The fever caused a stillbirth.”

  “Oh . . .” The sound issued from Haim’s lips like a groan. “I’m so sorry—”

  “You see, the child was our first and as it’s turned out our last, so you were quite accurate if a bit after the fact in your prophecy.”

  Haim once again was full of remorse.

  “There!” Dizengoff reached across and patted Haim’s knee. “I have told you this not to shame you but to excuse my own behavior. You touched a raw nerve. You see, I’ve always blamed myself for losing my son.”

  “Still, I had no right to speak so disrespectfully.”

  “Nonsense.” Dizengoff smiled. “You were extremely eloquent tonight, far more so than I ever was with the baron. It was no wonder he fired me for insubordination.”

  “You were fired for being disrespectful to Baron Rothschild?”

  “Personally fired. Let’s give credit where credit is due.” Dizengoff laughed. “It was foolish of me, but it was just after the—the misfortune. In those terrible days I was in a mood to fight with anybody. I sent an extremely surly letter to my employer, accusing him of being self-seeking, of expecting his money to raise him above other men, of being haughty and prideful.” He looked sheepishly at Haim. “The baron thanked me for my candor and added that my services were no longer required.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I came to Jaffa. Surely Rosie has told you about our project.”

  Haim nodded and on impulse added, “We’re going to be married.”

  “Mazel tov! Wonderful.”

  “Her parents don’t yet know.”

  Dizengoff froze. “I presume Rosie knows, yes?” When Haim said she did, the older man chuckled. “You’re the sort of determined young fellow who might let it slip your mind to inform the bride of your intentions.” He studied Haim. “I don’t know how to put this. She must have told you that she is quite devoted to our project.”

  “We’re staying here for the duration, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”

  “I take it you’re not very happy about the prospect.”

  “Let’s not quarrel again. I simply don’t see this project as a proper expression of Zionism—”

  “Whatever that means,” Dizengoff dourly interrupted. “Well, if it’ll make you feel any better, you are not alone in your opinion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that all the usual sources of funding have turned away from us, claiming just as you have that to be reckoned as Zionist pioneers we must plow fields—”

  “We must make our own bread if we are to be self-sufficient.”

  “Please, spare me the doctrine, for I know it all by heart as well as you—”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. What do you think, that I was born a fat little middle-aged man? Back in Russia maybe fifteen years ago my political activities earned me some very unpleasant time in prison.”

  “They did?” Haim asked rather weakly.

  “Yes indeed, and in my day if a comrade spent time in prison, his fellows gave him some respect.”

  “Of course. Absolutely.”

  “Well then,” Dizengoff said smugly, “I’m going to ask you what I asked those insufferable Zionist fools with all the money. Tell me, Haim, when was the last time you tilled the soil?”

  Haim swallowed. “Actually, never.”

  “Hmmm, that recently,” Dizengoff mocked. “Don’t fret, for few of you halutzim know anything about farming. Your parents reared you to devote your lives to study or learn a trade. Since you arrived here, you’ve learned a second trade, stonecutting. You’ve pursued it for rather a long time, yes? Why is that, Haim? I would think that all of your friends have long since scattered to the agricultural settlements.”

  “That’s true. I remained in Jerusalem so I could save my wages. I wanted to come back for Rosie.”

  “In other words, you have not behaved as a pure, selfless Zionist.”

  “I’m ashamed of myself in that respect,” Haim admitted. “But I was not holding myself up as the best example of how we should act—”

  “Well, you shouldn’t apologize for not being one of those drones,” Dizengoff said. “Eventually they will discover that they are not suited to the farmer’s life, and then they will want to return to the towns and villages.”

  Haim looked worried. “That’s not the way that it’s supposed to happen.”

  Dizengoff shrugged. “You must realize that up until now our cause has been a dream. An idea must be flexible if it is to survive. I was present when Theodor Herzl proposed that we all go to Uganda. Now, if the prophet of Zionism can preach that East Africa is the Promised Land, don’t you think you might be a little flexible?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Haim complained. “All I know is that we must be self-sufficient if we are to survive. A house must have a firm foundation.”

  “That’s good if you’re a carpenter,” Dizengoff said impatiently. “It’s not so good if it’s a country you’re trying to build. I say it doesn’t matter how we accomplish things as long as they happen. Let’s build as quickly as possible and protect ourselves by becoming an indispensable part of the economy. The Arab who works for us will not attack us. The Turks will never banish us if their government depends on our baksheesh.”

  “But eventually we must hire Jewish labor.”

  “I agree with you if you mean slowly bring in Jews to do certain jobs. Our progress would come to a halt if all the settlements had to fire their Arab labor and bring in untrained halutzim. Where would we find enough skilled Jews to keep the agricultural settlements going, never mind construct the Jewish quarters in Jerusalem and Jaffa?”

  Haim had no answer. After a moment he asked, “If the Zionist a
gencies turned you down, where did you get the money to fund your project?”

  “A portion of it was raised among the members of the bayit,” Dizengoff replied, “but most of it was loans through the central office of the National Fund in France. I still have a few contacts there, and so I was able to go over the heads of the local officials.”

  “I bet the locals were not pleased with you for doing that.” Haim smiled. He was becoming fond of this fellow.

  Dizengoff grinned back. “Few people have had occasion to be pleased with me down through the years.”

  Haim found himself extending his hand. Dizengoff shook it and asked, “Can I count you a member of the Ahuzzat Bayit?”

  For a moment Haim was too astounded to speak. Finally he managed, “I have no money to contribute. How can I be brought in?”

  “You have something more important to contribute—fresh ideas, fresh blood. We are all a little old, Haim, a little set in our ways.”

  “But what would I do to earn my membership?”

  “You are an accomplished stonecutter, yes? And you speak Arabic. We shall need a construction foreman to oversee the Arabs.” Dizengoff winked. “And don’t forget, you are marrying Rosie. There’s your greatest contribution. She works for the bayit for nothing, and believe me, she is worth her weight in gold.”

  “On that we can agree,” Haim said.

  They did not marry immediately. Rosie was willing and her parents gave their blessings, but Haim did not want to take a wife before he had the means to provide for her. Rosie was admirable, but she had never been asked to make do with little money. They might never be rich, but Haim had no intention of taking her out of her home before they could start their lives together in comfort.

  How to accomplish this was the question. Haim had taken a room in the cheaper Arab quarter, where the effendis warmed to him now that he was hiring fellahin. Thanks to the building on Karm Jabali’s land, the fellahin were earning at last.