Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

Herschel eyed his superior. “Well, I was just curious about our plans. I remember that the Jews helped the British during the last war.”

  “We’re helping them now as well,” the old man asserted, “by not killing them.”

  As Herschel hurried from Mea She’arim he trailed his fingers along the cool limestone walls, thinking: My father toiled to cut the stone that shelters our people. He is everywhere in this country. Mama has taught me well. I am a Palestinian and can never be fatherless in this place.

  “You have made your selections, effendi?”

  Herschel started. It was the rug merchant, tugging at his sleeve. “What? What did you say?” Herschel asked in Arabic.

  “Pardon me, but I saw that you were no longer examining my wares. I thought perhaps you had made your selections and were waiting for me.”

  “No, I’m not ready,” Herschel stammered. “More time. I need more time.”

  The merchant eyed him curiously. “As you wish, effendi.” He backed away to his inner sanctum.

  Damn, Herschel fumed, he’s seen my face without the dark glasses. I mustn’t let this assignment rattle me so.

  Violence was not new to Herschel, but he still hated it. This would not be the first time he’d spilled blood. He had used his rifle to defend Degania during the Arab riots of ’29.

  He and the other youths of Degania slept in their clothes with their rifles beside them during the Arab rioting. News of massacres in Hebron and Safed came to the kibbutz; they heard tales of how the rampaging mobs murdered or mutilated defenseless Jews. The British reacted to these atrocities by locking up the surviving victims “for their own safety.” There were few arrests of Arabs, who chanted and carried banners that read, “The British are with us.”

  Herschel and his comrades drilled with their rifles. When Degania was challenged they killed those who would have killed them. Like most adolescents, they dreamed of the future; like most, they thought they would live forever. After the attacks, Herschel and his friends found themselves obsessed with thoughts of dying.

  But the young men gritted their teeth and rode with their elders, pursuing the Bedouin marauders to the banks of the Jordan River. They soon learned that it was possible to beat the nomads at their own game. Indeed, they learned that it was necessary to do so if they were to survive. The British had replaced the Turks, but little else in Palestine had changed.

  Papa, it is all just as it was when you died, Herschel brooded as he absently picked over the prayer rugs, waiting for it to be noon. We are older. Mama has grey hair and old Yol is bald on top, with a beard salted white. I have had to learn to be a desert fighter just like you. There is still no peace, Papa, never any peace.

  When Herschel Kolesnikoff was twelve years old his mother told him the truth about his father’s death, that Haim Kolesnikoff valiantly served Zionism during the war but did not die in battle.

  “You are old enough now to understand how it is for us in the world,” Rosie sorrowfully explained to her son. “I am confident that you can understand, for I have tried to make you strong with memories of your father.”

  Yol, who had returned to Degania after the war, was present when Rosie told her son the circumstances of his father’s murder. He explained Jibarn Ahmed’s motive and confessed his part in the blood feud that cost Haim his life.

  “That boy?” Herschel gasped. “That boy Papa said saved his life—it’s the same one?” His elders nodded and Herschel asked, “Where is Papa’s grave?”

  They took him to the spot. Herschel knelt by the unmarked mound of earth. Rosie and Yol exchanged glances as the boy pressed his lips against the ground and then stood up, grim-faced but dry-eyed.

  “Herschel,” Rosie asked, “do you wish to put a stone here?”

  He shrugged. “If the Arabs see that a Jew is buried here they will desecrate the site.”

  “We could have him brought back to Degania to be buried in our cemetery.”

  Herschel shook his head. “Papa’s happy here.” He spread his arms wide. “This land is his home. He is part of Palestine, just as we are.”

  Rosie stroked her son’s blond hair. “I’m proud of you, Herschel. Long ago I made a promise to your father at this very spot, may he rest in peace. Your father is with you always.”

  Herschel stared down at the earth. Papa, I would kill that boy if I could, he vowed. Someday when I’m grown I will kill him, I promise.

  When Herschel turned thirteen, Yol asked him what gift he desired to mark the occasion. “History,” Herschel replied. “Teach me, Uncle Yol—tell me what my father fought for and died for. Tell me what he won. Tell me what I won’t learn from my teachers. From them I get the facts. You can tell me the truth. I remember a little about the war, mostly how miserable everyone was and how bad to us the Turks and Germans were. But why do the British treat us so poorly now? Why don’t they keep their promises?”

  Herschel and Yol were seated across from one another at the table in the cottage. Rosie’s paintings and drawings lined the walls, and a small bedroom for Herschel had been added. Rosie sat in her son’s bedroom with the door open. She was pretending to read, but she was really listening to Yol.

  “It is absolutely true that the time immediately after the Turks were defeated was a honeymoon between the English and the Jews,” Yol explained. “Unfortunately, it was a very bad marriage in the first place. We Jews are a robust, forthright people. The British?” He dismissed the empire with a contemptuous flick of the wrist. “They make a very frigid bride.”

  “My dear friend,” Rosie called from the other room, “I will come in there and pull your beard out by its roots if you do not stop filling my son’s head full of your filthy analogies concerning honeymoons and frigid brides.”

  “Excuse me,” Yol grumbled. “He is thirteen years old, isn’t he?” He turned back to Herschel. “Your mother, a lovely woman, forgets that she is no longer the schoolteacher for our kibbutz. She forgets that we are now Degania Aleph and Beth and that our two villages share a proper teacher for our children.”

  “I agree with everything you have said,” Rosie called back to him, “but I will still pull your beard if you don’t stop that dirty talk.”

  “All right.” Yol winked at Herschel, who delighted when these two grownups bantered for what he took to be his amusement. “In the beginning the British meant well, you should understand, Herschel. They fully intended to live up to the Balfour Declaration, but they are a funny people. In many ways they are far more like Arabs than like Jews. For instance, both the Arabs and the British believe in class distinction. Both put great stock in elaborate courtesy and hospitality. Most important, both hate change. To tell either people that the change might do them good only makes them hate it more.

  “The British were pleased with the Arabs for helping them against the Central Powers during the War,” Yol continued. “Finally you must realize that we Jews seemed quite able to take care of ourselves. The Arabs are a rather primitive lot, and the imperialistic British like nothing better than to shoulder their so-called white man’s burden and colonize a backward people for their own good.”

  “But they promised us a national home,” Herschel interrupted.

  “Who, boy? Who promised?” Yol shook his head. “The British government? Men in the government said certain things, that I’ll grant you, but the local British administrators can either carry out or impede London’s policy, and what they choose to do influences and changes that policy. The Arab riots of ’20 and ’21, which you probably do not remember so well—”

  “I remember. I remember the watchman’s calls waking us up, and the shots and Mama crying.”

  “Those uprisings went pretty much unpunished by the British. Somehow it was made out to be our fault. We’d asked for trouble, the British told us. We were too pushy; we wanted too much. As you might imagine, the Arabs were greatly encouraged. If a few riots could accomplish so much, why not keep it up? More and bloodier attacks on Jews took place, and when we—t
he Z’va Haganah, the Army of Defense, which was formed from the Hashomer—attempted to protect our lives and property, it was we who were arrested, not our attackers.

  “The Arabs were elated. New men flocked to join Fawzi Kaukaji’s marauding bands, while the wealthy effendis, who had always hated us for threatening their privileged position as feudal lords, financed the attacks.

  “‘Hunt down Kaukaji,’ we implored the British.

  “‘Very well, we shall try, but then we must also arrest your Haganah members. That is only fair,’ the British said.” Yol sighed. “Of course, we were not running away, so the British had a little easier time confiscating our guns.” He smiled. “When they could find them, of course.”

  “Teacher’s pet,” Herschel murmured.

  “Eh?”

  “In school there is one boy—his name is Jossel—who is always misbehaving, but the instructor is fond of him and figures out a way to explain all the bad things he does so he won’t have to be punished. It’s like that with the British and the Arabs, yes, uncle?”

  “Teacher’s pets,” Yol chuckled. He patted Herschel’s hand. “Absolutely.”

  Late that night after Yol returned to his own cottage, Rosie told her son, “I have a birthday present for you as well.” She went to the closet and reached up for something hidden away on the top shelf.

  Herschel watched as she brought the worn leather tube to the table. “Is it a spyglass?”

  “No.” Rosie laughed kindly. “Well, maybe in a way it is like a spyglass. With this you can see far into the past.”

  She carefully extracted the rolled parchment from its protective casing and gently spread it flat on the table.

  Herschel’s eyes widened. “It’s Papa’s likeness. I remember when he showed this to me. I was so little. Papa looks very young in that picture. He looks like me.”

  “You do resemble your father,” Rosie amicably agreed.

  “Mama, I can’t remember—did you draw this?”

  “No, it was done by an artist in your father’s village in Russia. Here, see?” She pointed to the Hebraic characters. “This tells you when it was done and where.”

  Herschel wrinkled his nose. “He drew very well, but his Hebrew wasn’t much.”

  “In Russia Hebrew is not for every day, but only for prayers.”

  Herschel chuckled at that. “Who’s that man?” He squinted at the smudged writing. “I can’t make out his name.”

  “Your father’s papa died when he was very young. That man, Abraham Herodetsky, took care of your father. Don’t you remember hearing about him?”

  “No. Was it like how Uncle Yol takes care of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mama?” Herschel squirmed. “Are you going to marry Yol?”

  “What?”

  I’ve made her angry, Herschel thought, frightened.

  “I am very fond of Yol, but there will be no other husband for me, not ever. Can you understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Herschel smiled, relieved. “I am also fond of Uncle Yol, but I also won’t have another father—just like you.”

  Rosie kissed her son, and then asked, her voice suddenly grown gentle, “Do you like your present?”

  “Yes, very much. Is it really mine to keep?”

  “I’ll take care of it for you until you’re older, but it is yours. For a while I considered sending it to your grandfather in Jaffa, but it seems to me that you should have it.”

  Herschel grinned and gazed at the drawing. He said nothing out loud for fear he would upset his mother again, but he thought, Abraham Herodetsky, I would like to meet you someday.

  It must be coming close to noon, Herschel Kol thought as he loitered in the stall. He checked his watch: two minutes to go. He peered at the coffeehouse through the crowds thronging the narrow, hard-packed street. The place was filling up with patrons. They sat bent over their board games, furiously rattling dice in leather cups and sipping at tiny cups of Turkish coffee.

  Only I know how all those games will end, Herschel brooded. The two grenades had grown warm to the touch in his pockets.

  How much easier it is to belong to the Haganah as opposed to the lrgun, Herschel thought. How much easier to act in self-defense than to plot an attack.

  Once again he gazed at his soon-to-be victims, feeling his pulse quicken and the sweat trickle down his spine beneath his fine silk shirt.

  One minute to go, he thought, and began to count backward to himself from sixty.

  Take the grenades out, pull the pins—no, too soon. You’ll be spotted. Thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three . . .

  His own heartbeat filled his ears, drowning out the commotion of the bazaar. Now! he thought. I don’t care what time it is; I can’t bear to wait any longer.

  Herschel thrust his hands into his pants pockets. His fingers wrapped around the cast-iron serrated bodies of the grenades. He began to stride toward the coffeehouse and then froze.

  A short, slightly built Arab wearing a suit and tie and a Turkish-style fez had been on his way into the coffeehouse. He noticed Herschel standing across the alley, did a double take and froze.

  Herschel stared back at the man, his hands half out of his pockets. Who was he? Why was he looking at Herschel like that?

  The Arab took a tentative, horrifying step toward Herschel, but then blessedly changed his mind. He turned and went into the coffeehouse. Herschel caught a glimpse of him in the large window, taking his place at a round table occupied by several men.

  Now. Herschel steeled himself. The grenades were out of his pockets. He pulled the pins with his teeth and hurried forward, keeping hold of the safety levers. He dimly heard the rug merchant crying out for him to stop and then shouting for the police. He saw in the coffeehouse window that same Arab wearing the fez. The man saw the grenades in Herschel’s hand and then feinted sideways, disappearing from view.

  Herschel zigzagged into the middle of the street. All around him Arab shoppers hurried to get away. He had a clear throw to the coffeehouse’s gaping windows. He released the safety levers and bowled both in a smooth, underhand motion. He caught a glimpse of one of the grenades bouncing on a table, scattering the crockery. The other skittered out of view amidst the furnishings of the place. Herschel spun and ran.

  The twin blasts were concentrated and intensified within the confining stone walls of the bazaar. Herschel had prepared himself, or so he’d thought, but the shock wave knocked him off his feet. He was up and running again in an instant. He did not look back.

  He had three different escape routes planned out, just in case. In minutes he was out of the market into the sweet open air, leaving the smoke and the anguished cries far behind.

  Chapter 26

  Herschel loitered in a quiet alley just long enough to strip. He kicked off the crocodile shoes and hurled them deep into the dark recesses of the alley. Off came the suit pants, jacket and tie. He wore his usual khaki shorts underneath, and a pair of sandals tucked into his belt. He threw away the wide-brimmed hat. As he discarded each garment he felt a little safer. He rolled up his shirt sleeves and unfastened his collar. Finally he smudged dirt on the gleaming silk. When Herschel emerged he looked like what he was, a student at Hebrew University.

  He headed for the university now. He was pumped far too full of adrenaline to return to the apartment he shared with his mother. She would be waiting for him, and he didn’t trust himself to face her while he was so on edge. She knew he’d joined the lrgun, and quite soon word of the organization’s country-wide reprisals would reach her.

  No, he could not yet return home, not until he had sorted out his thoughts and tumultuous emotions as the ramifications of his actions took hold. At one time he could have discussed such things with his mother, but they’d grown apart.

  So, you helped kill women and children? Herschel could imagine the accusation in his mother’s eyes. The question hovered in his own mind. His had been a so-called ‘clean’ target, but what of his complicity in the org
anization’s actions as a whole? What of his moral responsibility?

  Herschel boarded a motor bus and settled into a seat in the back as it began the slow journey north, up the winding road to the campus on Mount Scopus. As Herschel gazed through the bus’s grimy window, covered with wire mesh to deflect hurled stones, or worse, grenades, his thoughts drifted back.

  Early in his education Herschel showed a strong talent for mathematics. His teachers took him as far along as they could, and after that they compiled book lists for him. The volumes were ordered from Tel Aviv.

  His mother was pleased that Herschel wished to pursue his education. She explained to him that there were two decisions he would have to make.

  Was he willing to leave Palestine in order to go to school? Was he willing to resign from Degania if the membership, which had the authority to veto the kibbutz children’s career plans, failed to agree?

  Herschel thought hard. He knew that their money had been wisely managed over the years; paying for an education abroad was not a concern. But if he left Palestine there was no promise that the British would allow him to return. Besides, how could he resign from Degania? He told his mother that he would remain in Palestine and abide by the kibbutz’s decision.

  Permission was granted. Herschel would attend Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

  The kibbutz decreed that Herschel should stay on until there were youths old enough to take his place in the defense of the settlement. The delay chafed at him, but it also worked to his advantage, for Hebrew University at that time focused on graduate-level research. The older Herschel was, the better he would do there.

  In 1934 Rosie accompanied her son to Jerusalem. Degania granted them both leave, insisting that she go along to look after Herschel, so she said. Herschel suspected that his mother encouraged him to choose Jerusalem over Haifa as much for her own benefit as his. She seemed as excited as he. She would paint, she told her son, take classes, talk with other artists and stretch her mind and talent. New surroundings would inspire her. Degania was her home, but she needed a change.