Once they heard the dry cough of a jackal prowling the other side of the perimeter fence. Several of the settlement’s dogs picked up the scent and began to bark.
“Would you really have resigned?” Haim asked, “Or was it just a bluff?”
Yol sounded weary. “I would have done it, even though it would have broken my heart. I must get away from here, where everything reminds me that I am a murderer.”
“What happened was very sad, but it was not murder—”
“I’ve told no one about it. I’ve accepted Trumpeldor’s reasoning that my confession would bring about a blood feud between Um Jumi and Degania. But I cannot stay where the old man’s ghost haunts me.”
“When will you leave?” Haim asked.
“At dawn. My things are packed. I have a place on the boat to Tiberias.”
“I knew that I never should have arranged our using the fellahin’s boats,” Haim said ruefully.
Yol chuckled. “I told you only trouble would come of it. Anyway, from Tiberias the roads are better. I can be on my way.”
“Where to?”
Yol shrugged. His curly hair and beard looked gun-metal blue in the moonlight.
They were reluctant to part. Both were aware that it would be a long while, if ever, before they would be reunited. They stood, eyeing each other almost crossly, hunching their shoulders and stamping their feet against the cold.
“Little monkey,” Haim finally grumbled, embracing Yol, “we are fine comrades, yes?”
“Absolutely.” Yol patted Haim’s shoulder. “Now go home to your wife and son.”
“What will I tell them? Rosie will rail at me for letting you go, and Herschel, he’ll cry for his uncle—”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Yol exclaimed. “Wait one second.” He dashed into his room and reappeared a moment later with something wrapped in an old cloth. “I carved this for Herschel’s birthday next week.” He thrust the parcel at Haim. “When you give it to him, be sure to say I made it, yes?”
“Of course I will,” Haim promised. He carefully unwrapped the birthday gift. It was a small prancing horse hitched to a wagon that could be rolled along on its delicate spoked wheels.
“This is magnificent work,” Haim murmured. “I’ll show it to Herschel and then put it away for when he is older and can appreciate it. This is far too delicate for a three-year-old.”
“Do what you think best.” Yol’s mouth twisted into a sad smile. “Now go home.”
Haim took one last long look at his friend and turned away. He could hear Yol calling softly to him as he walked back to his cottage, his boots crunching the brittle mud. “Tell them Yol got bored with this dreary place and went off to look for some fun.”
In the spring it was voted that the original founding kibbutz disband itself and reform to embrace all of the newer, permanent settlers. Degania, it was thought, could more smoothly and equitably function if there was no distinction between the most recently accepted and the charter members.
Another problem to be resolved was how to care for the children. Each mother kept her own with her throughout the work day. This was acceptable as long as women stayed in traditional roles, but some of the more radical ones had begun to insist that they do the same kinds of work as the men.
“We didn’t come to this country to cook, clean and do laundry,” these women maintained.
At first the men argued. “You have your gardens to till and cows to milk,” they pointed out. “We could never again hold our heads up if it became known that the men of Degania allowed their women to push plows.”
Gradually it became clear to everyone that work details had to be mixed if a cooperative program was to succeed, and something had to be done with the children. A mother could keep track of her children in the laundry room or the garden, but not in the fields.
None of the women would hear of giving up their hard-won right to do communal work in order to look after their children. Finally it was agreed that each child was the responsibility of the kibbutz. A building was set aside as a nursery, and two women—one of them Rosie—volunteered to look after the children. At the end of the day the mothers came to collect their offspring and take them back to their cottages for the night.
The day-care arrangement worked well for everyone, especially Rosie. She had never really enjoyed doing domestic chores or the arduous agricultural work, but she loved children and they loved her. The governing board complimented her on the job, and Rosie, regaining her self-confidence, once again felt the desire to sketch and paint. She referred to the children as her “puppies” and confessed to Haim that if she’d known she was so well suited for this kind of work, she would have used her time in Tel Aviv to train as a teacher. As it was, it would be several years before any of the children were old enough to require formal schooling.
The spring and early summer of 1914 proved to be a good time for Degania. Slowly the cobblers, merchants and lawyers who’d come to settle the land began to understand how they could profitably cultivate the Jordan valley. Strategies were devised, a special system of crop rotation was implemented, and all at once there began to occur a real improvement in the quality of life.
For one thing, the years of work had begun to eradicate the surrounding swampland. This cut down on the number of flies and mosquitoes, reducing in turn the incidence of fever. Pepper tree saplings were planted and took root. This encouraged the kibbutz to plant an avenue of cypress trees leading from the gate to the water tower. The flourishing cypresses became a sort of symbol. Every day the workers could walk past them, remarking to each other how much taller they looked since yesterday.
A flower garden was once again attempted, and this time the wild boars stayed away. One day, quite suddenly it seemed, bright flowers appeared, contrasting nicely with the pale green of the saplings. On that day the workers of Degania realized that they had begun to transform their desolate stretch of Galilee into a place of beauty.
Degania’s success had led to the establishment of similar agricultural settlements. Arthur Ruppin, head of the National Fund, made the trip from Tel Aviv to inspect what he had helped bring about at great risk to the fund’s meager resources, and even his own reputation.
Degania, he told them, was the first land to be truly owned by Jews, and now Jews could be proud of that ownership.
On June twenty-eighth Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. The murder and subsequent outbreak of war in Europe were closely followed by the Jewish community of Palestine. Many of the most influential people, property owners in Tel Aviv, for example, argued that the Turks would stay out of the war and that if the Ottoman Empire did fight, it would be on the side of the Allies. Many Jews in Palestine had taken Turkish citizenship and now loudly proclaimed their loyalty to Turkey no matter which side that country took.
It was Joseph Trumpeldor, anxiously perusing the stacks of tattered weeks-old newspapers brought in on the supply carts, who understood the significance of the widening war. For fifty years the storm had been brewing. Now it was just beyond the horizon. Trumpeldor’s warrior bones told him that the rain was about to fall.
Haim was in the tack room caring for the saddles and the leather harnesses for the mules when Trumpeldor came to talk with him. It was the end of September but still blazingly hot. The sky was bleached white. Here in the Jordan valley the earth had baked hot enough to raise a blister on the bottom of a bare foot—except for the feet of the Arabs, and the children of Degania.
Haim liked working in the tack room. It was relatively cool and pleasantly lit. The harsh sunlight filtered golden through the burlap curtains, bringing a rich sheen to the burnished leather.
He took each harness from its peg and carried it to the worktable: He scrubbed the tack down with a rag soaked in saddle soap and then waxed the leather. He polished each bit of leather and brass until it gleamed, the simple, soothing work carrying him back across the years to his apprenticeship in Abe’s cobbling shop and their little v
illage in the pale.
Next year would mark a decade in Palestine. Ten years! So much time passed, miles traveled, money earned and given away. He had cut stone, run a factory, helped build the first Jewish city and the first kibbutz.
But for all that no work satisfied him as much as when he cut and molded the leather, affixed the brass and polished the piece until it glowed.
“You made of me a fine shoemaker,” Haim remarked to Abe, whose presence seemed to hover amidst the cut hide and pungent tins of soap and preservative. It was in the tack room that Haim could best remember Abe. Since Yol’s departure seven months ago he had begun anew to long for Abe’s company.
In the tack room, through a kind of meditation brought about by the simple but soul-satisfying work, Haim found that he could talk to Abe. He could describe what had happened to him so far in his eventful life, and he could talk of Rosie and of his pride and joy, his son Herschel. As Haim worked he found himself better able to remember conversations with Abe.
His work in the tack room had taken on such a private significance that Haim considered it an intrusion when Joseph Trumpeldor barged in, a creased newspaper in his right hand. Haim had done his best to avoid Trumpeldor since that terrible night last fall. He—admittedly irrationally—blamed the Russian for Yol’s misfortune.
“Read this.” Trumpeldor thrust the newspaper in front of him.
Haim glanced at the front page as he continued with his work. “It is in English, yes, Joseph? I do not know English.”
Trumpeldor nodded. “It’s a British-funded paper out of Tel Aviv. It just arrived on the cart. I’ll read it to you.”
Haim listened as Trumpeldor rambled on about a battle at a river called the Marne, near Paris. The French and some English—the British Expeditionary Force—had won a decisive victory over the Germans.
“The Kaiser’s forces will fall back now,” Trumpeldor continued. “The Germans’ strategy of crushing the West so that they can turn all of their might against Russia is finished.”
Haim was unclear if Trumpeldor was still reading or was offering his own opinion. He carefully ran his saddle-soaped rag the length of a harness rein, making sure to clean the edges of the leather as well as both sides.
“There’s no question now that a long and costly war on two fronts is unavoidable for Germany,” Trumpeldor went on.
There was a horsefly buzzing figure-eights around the tack room, occasionally thudding against the slanted whitewashed ceiling. Haim wished that both the fly and Trumpeldor would go away and allow him to work in peace.
“Joseph, what is the point you are trying to make?” As Haim spoke he scrutinized the harness. “I don’t quite see the significance of this Marne,” he absently murmured.
“Perhaps if you gave me your attention, I could help you to understand it,” Trumpeldor curtly replied.
Haim set down his polishing rag. His work in the tack room was special. He would not spoil it by continuing while another person—especially Trumpeldor—was nattering at him.
“Here is what I can deduce from the newspaper,” Trumpeldor began, folding it in half and shoving it into a pocket. “With two fronts going the Germans will want to give the Allies a little more to think about. The Kaiser will redouble his efforts to get Turkey to ally itself with the Central Powers.”
Haim shrugged. “If you say so, Joseph, for you know far more about military matters than I do, but I’ve heard people say that Turkey is leaning toward the Allies because of French investments in that country. I’ve heard that many Turkish ministers are pro-Entente, or at the very least neutral.”
Trumpeldor’s stern, hawkish features relaxed into a thin smile. “You’re wrong, my boy, but at least you’ve begun to think.”
“I’m not your boy,” Haim glowered.
Trumpeldor’s smile turned into a smirk. “Sorry.”
“You may disagree with me, but don’t say I’m flat-out wrong, Joseph.”
“Actually, I will say that, and here’s why.” Trumpeldor’s fingers hammered the tabletop as he made his points. “Number one, the Turkish army has recently been restructured by a German general. Number two, there are leaders of the Young Turks Revisionist Party, War Minister Enver Pasha among them, who have taken on the Prussian style. I suspect they’ll be taking fencing lessons and sporting monocles before very long. Third, there is long-standing animosity between Turkey and Russia over the former’s claims to ancient territory now held by the Russians. The Germans will bewitch the Turks with glorious tales of what could be. The Turks would rather listen to such promises than face reality. Already we’ve seen which way the Turks are leaning. Consider the events of just a few weeks ago, when those German battleships evaded their British pursuers by entering the Dardanelles—”
“Everyone knows that story.” The German cruisers had been immediately “purchased” by the Turks and the German sailors issued fezes. “And everyone has an explanation for the Turkish action. It could have been that the Turks wanted to teach the British a lesson for having seized those two battleships being built for Turkey in British shipyards—”
“Or that Turkey wanted to put pressure on Russia to cede those territories,” Trumpeldor scowled. “The immediate motivations are far less important than the result, which will be Turkey’s entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers.”
Haim feigned a yawn. “Whatever you say, Joseph. There’s nothing we can do about it. Now please, may I get back to my work—”
“Damn you, listen to me!” Trumpeldor barked. “I know you blame me for your friend’s troubles on that night, but put aside your grudge for the moment and listen. Believe me, that war is coming here. Believe that I have lived through enough war to know how it can—” He hesitated, his arm impotently sawing the air as his mind groped for the right words to express himself. “I’ve seen how war can accelerate the course of history—”
“You’re a soldier, Joseph. To you war is the solution to every problem.” Haim grimly shook his head. “That’s why I can’t trust your interpretation of events.” And that’s an outright lie, Haim thought. Why am I frightened to confront him with my feelings concerning Yol? He’s already brought it up.
“I am a warrior, it is true. But above everything I am a Zionist. When Turkey enters the war the Allies will have to divert forces to defend Egypt. They will need help. There are eighty thousand Jews living in Palestine at this moment. How the Zionist movement aligns itself in the immediate future will affect the likelihood of establishing a Jewish homeland for generations to come.”
“You were right, you know,” Haim heard himself admitting. “What you’d said before, concerning Yol, you were right. I do blame you.”
He expected Trumpeldor to make a face, to shout, to belittle the accusation. He even expected the hard old soldier to ridicule Yol for carrying on like an old woman over the incident. If he does that I’ll smack him one, Haim vowed. Never mind his one arm and the fact that he’s a hero.
What Haim did not expect was for Trumpeldor to nod, looking suddenly very grey and tired, nor to see compassion in his brooding hunter’s eyes.
“I don’t question you for blaming me, because I’ve already blamed myself,” Trumpeldor said. “You don’t know how often I’ve wished it were you I’d left to watch over the mules.”
Haim nodded sullenly. “Thanks very much. Then the shooting would have been on my conscience.”
“Perhaps, but then again perhaps not. Perhaps you wouldn’t have shot so quickly, Haim. You’re not like Yol.”
“Yol is a good man, Joseph,” Haim began in tones of warning. “Don’t you—”
“Oh, stop it,” Trumpeldor implored. “Yol is totally unsuited to be a fighter. It’s not a question of whether he is a good man or a bad one. He simply isn’t cut out for the job. For one thing, he has far too much imagination. A head full of ideas is an asset for a jokester, a detriment to a man who has to face an armed enemy in the dark. Believe an old soldier, Haim. You may think that whe
n it comes to war I am like a drunk clutching his bottle, but the truth is that I do not enjoy killing or watching my comrades being killed or maimed. It is simply that I have a talent for the military.” He paused, his dark eyes intent upon Haim. “And so do you, you must realize, so do you.”
“Joseph, I’m confused.” Haim stared at Trumpeldor. “I was terrified that night.”
“I was watching you. You did well. I saw what you were made of. If it had been you who shot the Arab, you would have gotten over it. Unlike Yol, you would have come to realize that such accidents are unavoidable during wartime.”
“We’re not at war.”
“But we are,” Trumpeldor insisted. “Now we fight the Bedouins. Soon we will fight the Turks, and someday we will be against all the Arabs. Believe an old soldier, Haim. There is only so much land. If we are to have some of it, we will have to fight for it.”
“We have Tel Aviv right now,” Haim argued. “Degania is ours; we have the papers to prove it on file at the National Fund office.”
“We have only illegal status in this country, which allows us to build and turn wasteland into farmland because we pay the Turks. We are no better off than the serfs in Russia. They pay the landlords for the right to improve and work the land. A bribe is a bribe, Haim, and paying it is not the way to earn a homeland.”
“There aren’t enough Jews in Palestine to defeat the Turks,” Haim said. “We must cooperate, get them to trust us—”
“They never will,” Trumpeldor said flatly. “They will use us if they can, but they’ll never accept us. We’ve paid baksheesh far too long, and most of us are from Russia, their enemy in this war. Our only hope lies in an Allied victory, especially if we can help to bring it about. Our leaders must bargain with the British and the French: Jews to fight against the Central Powers in exchange for a homeland after the war. I intend to organize and lead those volunteers, and I want you with me, Haim.”
Israel Page 26