by Judith Gould
Knowing that much from his letters, life became a living hell for Tamara. Each day dawned as a waiting game, and only long past nightfall, after no one arrived to proclaim her a widow, did she fall into nightmarish, uneasy sleep. Her nerves became ragged, on edge. She was so cross, so crotchety, her neighbours began to tread with special care around her.
Then, during a scorching, deceptively peaceful-dawning Tuesday in August 1942, Tamara'a world short-circuited completely. In the morning, an irrigation pump feeding water to the fields and the settlement overheated and exploded. Around noon there was an Arab attack from the hills which took more than two hours to repel. In the early afternoon, the twins got into a wretched fight, and she'd had to punish them. And early that evening, just as she was certain her world had settled back into sanity, a British Land Rover screeched to a halt in front of her house and a British officer knocked on her door.
'Mrs. ben Yaacov?' he asked in a raspy voice.
'Y-yes?'
'Mrs. Dani ben Yaacov?'
A sudden fear swept through her and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream. It was as if she were frozen to the door, unable to speak, or nod, or move.
Slowly she let her hand drop from her mouth. But a ghastly smile that could not thaw was frozen on her face.
'I am Major Winwood.' The British officer peered at her closely with concern. 'Are you quite all right, madam?'
'O-of course I am, Major,' she said, holding the door to the living room wider. 'Won't you come in? It's a beastly day, in the mid-nineties, I think. Surely you could use some refreshment?'
'Mrs. ben Yaacov, if you'd please sit down . . .' His breathing was laboured, wheezy from a lifetime of smoking.
'I'm fine!' she said too quickly, with too much fierce chirpiness. 'Please make yourself comfortable.' She gestured to a chair and then paced the room, wringing her hands nervously. 'I'm afraid the house is in such a mess. To tell you the truth, I really wasn't expecting visitors. If I'd known you were coming, I'd . . .' Her voice trailed off, as she found it difficult to continue with the niceties.
He remained standing, his feet planted wide apart. 'Please understand that I find it very difficult to have to break this news to you, Mrs. ben Yaacov. Saturday last your husband was on a nighttime bombing mission over Germany . . .'His voice trailed off.
She whirled around, her face alabaster white. 'G-go on.'
He avoided her eyes. 'I regret that it is my duty to have to inform you that his plane was shot down somewhere over the Ruhr.'
She shut her eyes and the world seemed to tilt and scratch and shriek. Interminable minutes passed before she could trust herself to speak. 'P-please . . . what happened?'
'From eyewitness accounts, all we know is that his plane sustained a direct hit.'
Her mind reached out, found a straw, and grasped at it with all its might. 'The crew parachuted to safety, I take it.'
'The plane exploded in midair. I'm afraid there wasn't time for the crew to evacuate. There . . .there are no remains. I'm sorry.'
She was thrown into a sudden tailspin. She swayed, stumbled, and then her body seemed to cave in on itself. He reached out to catch her before she fell, but before she collapsed she pulled herself together and her swaying lost momentum.
Shot down.
She shut her eyes and gripped the table.
The major was telling her that Dani was dead. That he was forever lost to her.
A midair explosion.
With no remains.
'Mrs. ben Yaacov . . .'
She took a deep breath, her face shining as brightly as polished steel. 'I'm fine, Major. For a moment I ... I felt a little weak. You must forgive me.' She made a fluttering gesture with her hand. 'I'm all right now, really I am. Won't you invite your driver in for something cool to drink?'
'I'm afraid we really must be going. I'll get one of your neighbours to sit with you.'
She shook her head. 'That's very kind of you, Major Winwood, but it really isn't necessary. There are a lot of things I must do. It's been so long since I sent my husband a package. Just ordinary things, you know, but touches of home.'
'Mrs. ben Yaacov, I realize this is a shock . . .'
'Shock!' She glared at him.
'He's dead,' he said gently. 'You must come to terms with it. Your husband was killed.'
'Oh, but you're mistaken, Major. You see, he isn't dead. He's very much alive.'
He stared at her in silence. Her face had become even more radiant, even more like polished steel. He could almost imagine shards of light glancing off it.
Even before she heard his Land Rover drive off, she was already at her little desk writing Dani a letter. Her features furrowed into a frown. What is all this nonsense about Dani's being dead. Dani isn't dead. He's alive somewhere. I can feel it in my bones.
'Dani, my love, my precious sweet. . .' she wrote.
She didn't make a single reference to the major's visit. She clung desperately to her belief that Dani wasn't dead, that he would receive her letter or at least know it had been written. And three weeks later, when the last letter he had written to her before he'd been shot down arrived, she took it as a sign that she was right. Somewhere out there, he was alive.
Mentally she entrenched herself, doggedly waiting for him to return. Never once did she give up and admit defeat.
The war continued and the Allies continued to make headway.
After three winter counterthrusts, Russia began driving the Axis powers from all of Eastern Europe and the Balkans; British and American forces invaded North Africa, Italy, and Norway.
In the Pacific, the Battle of Midway turned back the Japanese advance, and successive island hopping culminated in the decisive but costly victories at Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Massive bombing raids on the Japanese homeland began to wear down the Japanese defences.
It became clear that an Allied victory would be assured. Then 1944 crept into 1945.
Finally, on May 7,1945, Germany surrendered and the war in Europe at last ground to a halt. In the Pacific, peace took longer to achieve, but three months and two atomic bombs later, Japan surrendered on August 14.
When the final tally was made, the war's death toll would stand at a staggering forty-five million, more than one-seventh of them Jews who had perished in the Nazi death camps.
Slowly the Jewish Palestinians who had fought with the English were discharged from the armed forces and trickled home. Some came back wounded, some came back fit in body, but none had come through the war unscathed.
Tamara waited and waited, but Dani did not return.
During the painful days and weeks and months and then years, Tamara had staunchly refused to believe that Dani was dead. Something inside her—some vague intuition, a psychic notion, perhaps, or a wife's unflagging belief that her husband's living presence could travel on some mysterious wavelength back to her—simply refused to let her give him up for dead. She was well aware that others took it as a sign that she was unable to face the truth or that she was so shattered she was becoming mentally weak. Her friends and neighbours had long since given up trying to reason with her. Tamara herself couldn't explain why she felt as she did, but the feeling wouldn't go away.
It was the First Eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and since it was past sunset, Tamara had to light the holiday candles from a preexisting flame. Solemnly she checked the twins to make sure they were still wearing their yarmulkes, covered her head with the prayer shawl, and went to the kitchen to get the thick, long-burning candle she had lit well before the sun had gone down. Carefully she tilted its flame to the candles she had lined up in little glass containers on the table. One by one, their wicks caught fire, flaming with a slight hiss and crackle, flickered, and then settled into silent, brightening aureoles of steady light. She took the long-burning candle back to the kitchen. It was to burn continuously through the Second Eve, when, after sunset the following day, she would use it to light the holi
day candles once again. According to religious tradition, a fire could not be struck during the holiday, so the preexisting flame had to be kept lit. Throughout the procedure, she couldn't help but be reminded of how much she had already learned of her faith, of how much she still had to learn. But unlike the previous Rosh Hashanahs, she no longer needed to read the prayers. She had memorized them all, and Hebrew had become such second nature to her that at times she surprised herself by actually thinking in that once-exotic language.
Now, bowing her head, she began to recite the benediction by heart: 'Boruch atoh adonoi,' she began. She glanced down at the children.
'Boruch atoh adonoi,' they said obediently, and continued repeating each phrase after her.
'. . . Yom hazikoron.'
'. . . Yom hazikoron.'
She smiled at them proudly. 'That was very good,' she said in English. She was a firm believer in mixing Hebrew with judicious dollops of English so that they would be bilingual.
Alone with the twins, a glass of sweet red wine, and the flickering candles, she could almost feel Dani's presence. She bowed her head again and continued to pray, the twins echoing every word. 'Boruch atoh adonoi eloheinu melech hoolom shehehcheyohnu bikiyemcnu—'
Abruptly the prayer was interrupted by a knocking at the door. Tamara felt a stab of annoyance. She didn't want company. Hadn't she made that perfectly clear? Why did everyone have to be so well-meaning at times like this?
The knocks came again, louder this time.
'Mama, aren't you going to answer it?' Asa demanded.
'. . . Vehegeonu legman hazeh.' Hurriedly she finished the remaining words of the prayer, and then, placing one hand flat on top of her head to keep the prayer shawl from sliding off, went to the door and yanked it open.
Her face registered little surprise. 'Come in, Major,' she said, recognizing the British officer at once. He was the same man who had come to deliver the news that Dani had been shot down. His breathing was as wheezy as it had been then. 'Major Winfield, if memory serves me correctly.'
'Winwood, madam,' he corrected.
She opened the door wider and stepped aside. 'Do come in.'
He took off his hat, held it awkwardly in front of him, and stepped into the room. She closed the door quietly behind him. He looked at the flickering candles on the table and turned to her. 'I hope I'm not interrupting something?'
'Only a little holiday celebration which shouldn't be celebrated alone,' she said, unaware that the prayer shawl had slipped down over her shoulders. 'Children, this is Major Winwood. Major Winwood, Ari and Asa.'
'How do you do?' the twins said in chorus.
Tamara looked at the major. 'Can I get you something?'
'In a moment, perhaps. First, I would like to inform you—'
'That my husband is alive and well,' she finished for him, 'and that he will return home shortly.'
He stared at her in surprise. 'How did you know?'
'I always knew,' she said simply. 'I felt it in my heart all along.'
He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. 'On behalf of the Royal Air Force and myself I must apologize for having upset you unduly when I last came to see you. We really believed that there was no chance for his survival.'
'But you didn't upset me unduly, Major,' she answered him. 'I didn't believe for a moment that Dani was dead. Now, would you join me in a glass of wine? This is, after all, the occasion of the Jewish New Year. And it will be a happy new year, I can see that already.'
'Please, I don't mind if I do, madam.' Again she could hear him wheezing heavily. She went to get another glass, poured wine for both of them, and they sat down facing each other across the table. He lifted his glass. 'Cheers,' he said, extending his glass over the candles.
'L'Chaim,' she replied. They clinked glasses and drank.
'Now,' she said, putting her wine down and lifting her chin. 'I would appreciate it if you could fill me in on some of the details.'
'They're a bit sketchy, I'm afraid. Apparently, when your husband's plane was shot down he parachuted to safety, but was severely wounded, and the years he spent in the detention camp didn't help him any. When the camp was liberated, he had no identification on him, and could barely speak. He was very sick and emaciated. In fact, if it hadn't been for some fellow prisoners, we wouldn't even have known that he'd been with the RAF. Last April he was transferred to a military hospital in Surrey. He only recently recovered enough to remember who he was.'
'Then I must go to him at once!'
'There's no need for that, madam. As soon as he's debriefed, he will be on his way here, possibly within the week.'
'In that case,' she said, leaning over the table and blowing out the candles, 'I think it would be appropriate to celebrate Rosh Hashanah a little later than usual this year.'
For Tamara, the war was finally over.
Tamara was sure that Dani's return home would be the single happiest day of her entire life, but she was unprepared for the bittersweetness of the occasion. She barely recognized him when he came off the ship, and could only stare at him in a state of shock. He was not the same man who had marched off healthy and fit and tan to do battle with the Nazis. He was but a shadow of the Dani she had once known. His eyes were sunken into concave hollows and their expression ranged from weary and unfocused to hunted and suspicious, as though they had seen more horrors than they could endure. His cheeks were hollow as well, and his once-tanned complexion was sallow and sickly. His uniform hung from a skeletal body.
She nearly let out a scream of horror. What had they done to him?
She took him into her arms and held him close, the tears streaming from both their eyes.
It was obvious to Tamara that what he needed was rest, and a good diet, and no end of loving care. She dropped everything she had been involved in, packed some suitcases, and the four of them went immediately to Eilat, where they had spent their honeymoon. For three months they did nothing but catch up on the years, draw strength and comfort from each other, and after the twins had been put to bed, make love.
Tamara dedicated herself completely to Dani. She cooked for him, cared for him, and nursed him back to health. Although he would never divulge the horrors he had been forced to witness and endure, often he awoke from nightmares screaming and drenched in a cold sweat, and she would hold him and comfort him as best she could.
Slowly, she, the sun, the sea, and the boys worked their wonders.
Dani began putting on weight, and the regimen of daily exercise she prescribed for him, as well as the games the twins forced him to endure, fleshed out his muscles. His sickly, sallow complexion took on the darkness of a healthy, glowing tan. But the single most important thing with which she infused him over those first crucial three months was a sense of stability, of normality and family life, of a nightmare turned right. Instead of famine, there were feasts; in place of abuse there was tender love, and Tamara managed to allay and then banish his fears. But it was also during his convalescence that she realized how wrong she had been. The war was far from over. Its grisly residue would haunt them all for a lifetime to come, lurking just behind the facade of happiness.
'I've been licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself long enough now,' Dani announced unexpectedly over breakfast one morning. He and Tamara sat alone, as the boys had gone fishing with another family. 'It's time to go home.'
She looked at him silently, tears of happiness blurring her vision.
He smiled. 'Well, aren't you going to start packing?'
She could barely speak. 'You mean you're . . . you're . . . ready to leave now?'
'We've idled long enough. It's time we got going and started to move those mountains we used to speak of.'
She wanted to applaud. The Dani she loved so fiercely had returned.
They sealed their happiness with a kiss. But his was no mere loving kiss. It became urgent, prolonged, a resurrection of body and soul, a reawakening to life and all its pleasures, a celebration of lif
e over death. The savageness of it brought tears to her eyes. She was so overcome by her happiness for him—and for them—that there was something dreamlike, almost mystical about the lovemaking that followed. Before his tongue found her breasts, and long before he entered her, her mind and body had merged as one with his.
On that morning, their breakfasts abandoned on their plates, they conceived their third and last child.
Chapter 29
The oasis of al-Najaf, Jehan, the wife of Naemuddin al-Ameer, cleared away the last vestiges of the morning meal and then tied back the curtain which divided the one-room house into two separate living areas. She draped her head with the thick black veil she always wore when she went out-of-doors, paused to adjust it, and glanced out the open door. From nearby came the shouts and shrieks of Iffat and Najib, her grandchildren happily at play.
How innocent the sounds of childhood! she thought, shaking her head mournfully. And how short that time of innocence was. Already Iffat was six, Najib twelve. How soon before they would be grown and discover the world for what it really was—harsh and cruel and unfeeling?
Suppressing a shiver, she looked over at her husband. He was seated in his usual spot, a cushioned carpet at the far end of the room. Flutters of nervous apprehension ran through her. He had not touched his breakfast, and now he was letting his sweet mint tea get cold. She could tell that he was deeply troubled. His head was bowed forward, his wide brow deeply furrowed with worry; he was far away, lost in thought.
Soundlessly she walked toward him and dropped to her knees in front of him. 'What troubles you, my husband?' she asked softly. She took his hands in hers and looked down at them. They were rough and gnarled, just as hers were, only larger. 'There is nothing to worry about, is there?'