Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

  At seven Herschel was a skinny miniature of Haim. His blond hair was straighter and lighter than Haim’s but still his father’s gift, as were his handsome features and blue eyes.

  Rosie watched Herschel as he walked with his hands thrust into the pockets of his baggy shorts, eyes narrowed in thought. He was all gangling arms and scabby knees, but there was something very grown-up about him.

  She knew what Herschel was thinking. She’d seen the way he perked up when the speaker mentioned Transjordan.

  He knows that’s where his father probably is, Rosie thought.

  It had been six months since Haim left them, half a year since that night when husband and wife loved each other so exquisitely, and teary-eyed father and son exchanged their private farewells outside the cottage, beyond Rosie’s hearing. During those months the Turks had come and gone twice. As always, their presence was odious, but with the Balfour Declaration and the Central Powers’ promise that they too would provide for a Jewish homeland in exchange for Zionist cooperation, the beatings and other mistreatments had lessened.

  There was still disease. The years of overcrowding and malnutrition had taken their toll on both young and old, and medical care was hard to come by. The Turks and Germans restricted movement about the region. People had to depend upon the compassion of individual soldiers; some, both Turk and German, would allow a mission of mercy such as transport of the sick to a hospital. Other soldiers would order the carts back and threaten to shoot if their decree was not obeyed.

  Herschel ran ahead of Rosie to pull open the door of the cottage. No key was needed, for there were no locks in Degania. That the members might steal from each other was unthinkable, and locks were useless against enemy soldiers.

  As Rosie crossed the threshold into the dark cottage she knew Haim was back. Later on she analyzed her intuition as a composite of the smell of cordite and gun oil in the one-room cottage, the creak of the floorboards behind her, the glimpse from the corner of her eye of Herschel frozen in place, staring past her at someone stepping lightly from behind the door.

  “My love,” she whispered even as she was turning to meet Haim’s embrace.

  “Papa?” Herschel was not at all sure of the identity of the fierce Bedouin hugging and kissing his crying mother.

  “Papa?” The boy’s voice still shook with uncertainty, though the joy began to expand inside him. The Bedouin was wearing leather slippers and baggy canvas trousers cinched at the ankles. There were the filmy cotton brussa shirt, the striped caftan and the black cotton coat. On the man’s head was the kaffiyeh, cinched in place with an ornate braided headband, called an akal.

  The Bedouin looked down at Herschel and the boy began to shiver—in fear, in love, in awe. It was his father! He had been fooled by the nomad garb and by the full honey-colored beard, but Herschel knew his father’s eyes.

  “Papa!” His father was moving toward him, brushing back his coattails as he hunkered down to scoop up his son. Herschel’s eyes widened as he took in the scuffed gunbelt glittering with brass cartridges, the leather holster and the worn wooden butt of the revolver.

  A gun, Herschel thought. His father’s rough beard was tickling his face and he sobbed his greetings between kisses. My father is a Jew, but he has a gun like the Turks. I thought Jews could only farm and let others hurt them, but my father has a gun. He fights!

  He knew his father was gone to fight the Turks, but only in an abstract, unreal way, as he knew that he’d been born seven years ago and that in a forever from now, they said, he would die. His formative time on earth had been spent since the advent of the war. No one had ever thought to tell him of the Hashomers’ early role in the defense of the settlements. He didn’t know the kibbutz had a cache of rifles or that the bowed, meek farmers had the knowledge to use them.

  Now as he hugged his father, Herschel made the connection between his father’s absence, his father’s gun, and the defeat of the Turks that everyone said would soon come. Herschel, his young mind reeling with reports of war and his heart set ablaze by the touch of his father’s huge strong loving hands upon him, realized that the ability to endure hardship was only the half of it. A man also needed the wherewithal to fight back.

  Seven-year-old Herschel did not have the words to express what had happened to him, but he had just made the transition from a resigned, long-suffering Jew to a Zionist.

  “Are you back for good?” Rosie asked hopefully, wiping away her own tears.

  Haim shook his head. “No, my love. Yol is waiting for me in the rocks a little way from the compound. The rest of the band is camped along the Jordan. We’ve come north because the Turks are falling back. I wanted this chance to see my family.”

  “You’ve not come home, Papa?” Herschel asked.

  “I can’t stay, but it’ll only be a few months more, my son, and then I will be home for good. Meanwhile I want you to take care of your mother. Is that understood?”

  Herschel, gazing up at the sun-burnished giant, nodded wordlessly. He drank in every detail of his father’s appearance, struggled to memorize his voice and the way he walked. These memories would be all he would have to sustain him during the next interminable absence.

  “Has the boy been all right?” Haim asked. “He studies? He’s healthy? There’s food for him?”

  “He learns his lessons because I’ve told him that his father wishes it. He has Hebrew, Arabic and English; he’s shown an aptitude for mathematics and the sciences. We teach him and the others what we can from the textbooks.” She shrugged. “As for the other questions, he eats what everyone eats, which is not enough. Thank God the fever leaves him alone. He’s as healthy as any boy who so desperately misses his father—”

  “Oh, Rosie,” Haim turned away from her.

  She threw her arms around his neck. “Forgive me. I said that only because of my disappointment that you can’t stay. It is only because I love you.”

  Haim kissed her lightly. “Your idea of love talk always has been a little rough.”

  Rosie rested her head against his chest. “I’ve been so worried.”

  “The Turks have yet to get a shot at us.”

  “But you shoot them, yes, Papa?” Herschel insisted.

  “Yes, we shoot them, but you mustn’t say anything to the Turks when they come.”

  “I won’t, Papa, I promise.” Herschel’s hand reached up and his small fingers tentatively brushed the holster—he could not bring himself to touch his father’s revolver—and then jerked away.

  “Everyone here is proud of you and Yol,” Rosie said.

  “So the man at the gate told me. I understand why you had to explain my disappearance. I’m just afraid the secret will leak out. It’s for you and Herschel and the others that I worry.”

  “No one has ever told the Turks anything they wanted to know, and no one ever shall,” Rosie assured him. She took a step back in order to look him over. “You’ve not been wounded, God forbid?”

  Haim laughed. “Just once did I even come close. We were waiting for a Turkish patrol. We didn’t know it, but this particular patrol had a real Bedouin of its own acting as a scout. We’d never heard of such a thing, you understand; the Arabs hate the Turks as much as we do.

  “Anyway, this nomad came around behind our position, and as luck would have it, I was the one he discovered. Evidently he was going to plant a knife in my back when Jibarn—he’s an Arab boy who travels with us—saved me by—”

  Haim stopped abruptly as the memories flooded back: Jibarn riding the Bedouin piggyback; his glee as he slit the nomad’s throat. “Let me just say that Jibarn killed the man before he could harm me.”

  “If an Arab boy fights with you, why can’t I?” Herschel implored.

  “This boy is older. He’s thirteen—a man already. If you were thirteen it’d be different.” Haim winked at Rosie, who was glowering at him. “Anyway, that was the only close call. You know what he said to me, Rosie? ‘Haim, I will not allow anyone to harm you.’”
He shrugged, smiling. “He seems very much attached to me, even more than to Yol, who—Well, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Haim, what if you just didn’t go back?” Rosie pleaded, hugging him. “What if you just stayed? Yol would understand.”

  “Listen to me,” Haim said gently, holding her at arm’s length. “Many Jews have volunteered to fight. Since the liberation of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Palestinians have flocked to Jabotinsky’s call. The Jewish Legion has been formed and is being trained in Egypt, but it has seen no action. I’ve come to believe what many have said, that it never will. The Balfour Declaration promised us a home in return for our aid in this battle. My group is fulfilling the Zionist part of the bargain. The more fighting we do now, the sooner this will be over. Besides, when the Turks and Germans withdraw to Degania—and they are coming this way, I’m sorry to say—could you expect me to hang my head and polish their boots?”

  “No.” Rosie colored. “You are too brave and strong . . .” Her voice grew thick. “Too fine for that—Oh, Haim, I feel shy with you. Like a bride. I wish we could . . .” She trailed off, her eyes on Herschel, who was staring up at them.

  “I love you,” Haim murmured, “and I long for you. Soon we will be together again and there will be time, proper time. For now it is more important that we three be together as a family.”

  “I could come to your camp later, when Herschel sleeps,” Rosie suggested. “It is not so far—”

  Haim was tempted. Yol and their makeshift camp were only half an hour’s ride from here. He frowned. “It’s too dangerous. Why take such a risk? Come, now, let’s all sit together and talk, for I have only a little longer. Yol, Jibarn and I must be across the river with the others by dawn.”

  It was after midnight when Haim returned to the small camp by the same narrow stream Jibarn had led him to that first time. As on that night, there was a small fire burning and a pot of tea warming in the glowing coals. Both Yol and Jibarn were still awake, sitting crosslegged on their blankets as they watched the flames.

  “Everything okay?” Yol asked as Haim entered the clearing.

  “Everything is fine, and you were asked for,” Haim told his friend. “You should have come.”

  Yol shrugged. “I have no family waiting for me.”

  “My family is waiting for you.”

  Yol smiled. “You know what I mean. To go calling on all our old friends while you were with Rosie and Herschel and then to have to leave again would have caused me more pain than pleasure. When this war is over I shall return to Degania for good.”

  “Well.” Haim reached beneath his tunic and set a bottle of wine before Yol. “All the halutzim said, ‘Here, take this bottle to Yol to show him that we still remember what he is like—’”

  “Haim, it is a bottle from Rishon le Zion—why, it must be one of the last!”

  “Degania has a few cases hidden. They’re saving it to celebrate liberation, but they insisted that we have one.”

  “Now here we have a moral question, Jibarn,” Yol began. “Our comrades wait for us by the Jordan. Should we save this bottle—this tiny bottle—to share with them?”

  “I think not, Yol,” Jibarn replied thoughtfully. “Such a tiny bottle would allow only one sip each for forty men. A mere taste of home would be just like your visit to Degania, it would cause more pain than pleasure.”

  Yol had already pulled the cork. He took a long swallow and said, “I toast you, Jibarn. I can teach you no more.”

  “You’ve already done enough to corrupt him,” Haim joked as he was handed the bottle. He and Yol laughed, but Haim noticed that Jibarn did not. The Arab merely watched them, his smile inscrutable.

  “A drink, Jibarn?” Haim asked.

  The boy shook his head. “The Koran forbids it.”

  “Absolutely it does,” Yol exclaimed, snatching the bottle from Haim’s grasp. “I’ll drink his share.”

  “Yes, go ahead and drink,” Jibarn agreed, his skulllike face disquieting in the firelight. “It will help you to sleep. Don’t worry, I will wake you when the time comes.”

  The wine did help Yol to sleep, but Haim, still caught up with thoughts of his family, was far too restless to close his eyes. He kept the fire going and thought about his visit home until Jibarn silently rose and came around the flames to sit down beside him.

  “I am glad you got the chance to see your wife and son,” the Arab said in his own lilting tongue.

  Haim glanced sideways at Jibarn and returned his gaze to the fire. “Family is important,” he replied in Arabic. “You will have a wife and son one day.”

  “Oh, perhaps.” Jibarn shrugged. His shaved skull dipped down between his narrow shoulders. “It is hard to imagine such a thing, though. I have no home, Haim.”

  “You know I was an orphan, too—”

  “Yes, but to lose one’s family goes far beyond personal tragedy for an Arab. We put great stock in tracing our lineage, you know. Like the horse, like the falcon, we are only the sum total of our fathers and grandfathers.”

  Haim was silent for a moment. “I was there that night, you know.”

  Now it was Jibarn’s turn to glance sideways and nod shyly. “I know.”

  “It was an accident, as Yol has told you. It could not have been avoided. It was dark and we were afraid of the Bedouins. Yol was all alone, guarding our mules. He heard a noise, he turned, he fired—”

  “Stop,” Jibarn softly ordered. “The circumstances do not matter. Either something happened or it didn’t. It is not masculine to cloud the matter with circumstances.” He paused. “This I do say: I know that it was a blunder. Yol is prone to blunders.”

  “I think he made a blunder when he told you.”

  Jibarn smiled ferally. “I also think that.” He shrugged. “But it is in the past, yes, Haim? Come, hand me your revolver and I will clean it for you.”

  Haim nodded, reaching behind him for the holster lying on the blanket. He drew the pistol, an ancient Webley, and handed it to the boy, who nimbly extracted its cartridges, spilling them onto the blanket. Jibarn cleaned the firearms of most of the men in the group. Tonight there was no danger in being without a sidearm. Haim’s rifle was nearby and there were no Turks in the area as yet.

  “I turned thirteen last month,” Jibarn said as he wiped the weapon’s action with the hem of his caftan. “In my religion, as in yours, that is the age when a boy becomes a man. Until that age a boy can be neglectful if he wishes. After then, however, he is responsible for the honor of his family as well as himself.” He unscrewed the cylinder from the revolver’s frame. The Webley was in two pieces. Jibarn set both down on the blanket as he turned to confront Haim.

  “It is important to me that you understand everything,” the boy said, his tone oddly formal. “I respect you.”

  “I’m fond of you as well,” Haim said, not altogether truthfully. There was a quality about Jibarn that he did not care for, but tonight the mellow warmth of the wine he’d drunk, combined with his sympathy for the boy’s orphaned state, opened Haim’s heart. “I’ve not forgotten the way you saved my life. When the war is over, I’ll make it up to you.” He stretched to put his arm around Jibarn’s shoulder.

  Jibarn ducked beneath Haim’s outstretched arm and rose behind him with lethal grace and speed. Haim had no time to react before Jibarn’s sinewy forearm hammer-locked his throat and the boy’s glittering seven-inch blade materialized from the flowing cuff of his caftan to press against Haim’s ribs.

  “Blood feud,” Jibarn whispered like a lover into Haim’s ear. “As my enemy makes me cry, so will he weep. What he takes from me, I shall take from him. A man shall have his revenge.”

  Haim tried to speak, but only hoarse, fitful croaking came out of his throat. He tried again and managed, “You don’t want to do this.”

  “I do not, but that fact changes nothing. At first I thought to kill Yol. I thought this years ago, when he stayed with me in my grandfather’s hut in Um Jumi. ‘When I am thirteen,’ I vowe
d to myself, ‘when I am thirteen this womanly, weeping Jew will die for my grandfather’s murder.’ When you joined us I realized that the most exquisite revenge would be not to kill Yol, but to make him mourn for his great friend as I have mourned for my grandfather. In truth I did not count on becoming fond of you, Haim.”

  “Jibarn—” Haim rolled his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of Yol. He could hear his friend snoring loudly. He’s drunk, Haim thought. You know how soundly he sleeps when he is drunk. You must keep the boy talking to gain time.

  “Why did you save my life that time?” Haim asked as loudly as he could.

  “I saved you in order to kill you myself. You must die by my hand if my grandfather is to be avenged.” He tightened his hold on Haim’s throat. “Don’t try to awaken Yol. If you do, I will kill him too. You know it is likely that I could, long before he could figure out what was happening.”

  This is a dream, Haim thought, just a joke. Herschel! Rosie! I won’t—can’t—die!

  “I will not let you beg. There is no dignity in that. We are too good friends. That is why I delayed this reckoning until you had a chance to see your wife and son—”

  “Jibarn—” Fight him, Haim thought, panicking. Fight for the knife!

  Jibarn kissed Haim’s cheek as he thrust home the dagger, leaving it buried in Haim’s ribs. Then he was on his feet and looking down at his work.

  Haim slumped over onto his side, driving the knife in to its hilt. His fingers blindly groped for the Webley and closed around it, but then he remembered that Jibarn had dismantled the revolver. The rifle was somewhere behind him, but he didn’t have the strength to lift it, even if Jibarn allowed him to.

  He gazed up at the boy. He felt no pain, hadn’t felt any when the blade went in; just an icy sensation. The worst of it was hearing the grating noise as the steel ground against a rib.

  “Grandfather, you are avenged,” Jibarn said softly. “Haim, I wish you a good death.” Then he turned to vanish into the darkness beyond the fire.

  The world was spinning. Haim felt as pliant as rubber. He was warm and wet where his body rested in his own pooled blood.