by Judith Gould
'Let them gossip, if they have nothing better to do,' Jehan said irritably. 'They are a bunch of silly goats.'
'Shhhh!' Tawfiq sneaked a glance behind her to see if any of the others had heard. Relieved that they hadn't, she let out a little breath. Her voice took on a pleading tone. 'Please, Mother, can you not at least feign some interest?'
Suddenly Jehan caught sight of Abdullah strutting out of her house. With a pang, she noticed that he wore the elaborate headgear which had adorned her husband's head for so many years. The other men poured out behind him, hurrying to keep pace with his cocksure gait. Her heart sank. She did not need to be told what had happened. The headgear and the men's obvious excitement said it all. Without answering her daughter, and leaving her standing there openmouthed, Jehan leapt to her feet and hurried to her house. She sensed that now, more than at any other time in their lives, her husband needed her.
The last of the men were coming out when she got to the house. She waited with her head slightly bowed, and then looked around the door.
What she saw made her catch her breath. Her husband stood near the door, not five paces in front of her, and the bright sunlight, driving a wedge of light inside, spotlighted him against the dimness as if he were standing on a stage. He was staring directly at her but made no sign of seeing her.
A sudden chill came over her. No, he was not looking at her, she realized with a start. He was staring through her, as though she wasn't there.
In the brightness of the shaft of light, his defeat was magnified and piteous to see. His shoulders were slumped and narrowed, his face was slack, and for the first time in all the years they had been together, he looked old and frail and, yes, impotent. It was as if he had crumpled in on himself.
Taking a deep breath and offering up a swift prayer for Allah to give her courage, she stepped inside. Going to him, she placed an arm around his shoulders. She staggered as he collapsed limply against her, but she was a strong woman, and held her own. His body trembled uncontrollably.
'They want to fight!' he whispered, as if in a daze. 'They want to wound and maim. To kill!' His voice cracked. 'In two days' time, they intend to attack the Jews' settlement.'
'I know,' she replied gently. 'I watched them come out and knew from looking at their faces. They are fools.'
'I have failed,' he wept, shaking his head miserably. 'I tried one last time to make them see the light, but they would not listen. They do not care that many among them will die.'
'You have done all you can,' she murmured soothingly, but her voice was touched with fear. She sighed thinly. 'Their fates are now in the hands of Allah.'
At that moment, just outside the open door, her twelve-year-old grandson, Najib, skidded on bare feet, oblivious of the pain inflicted on the soles of his feet. Jehan turned to look. As if by design, he stopped precisely in the centre of the bright rectangle of sunlight. He was in profile and he brandished a stick. A moment later, little Iffat staggered toward him and let out a girlish shriek.
'I see a Jew!' Najib yelled. Pretending the stick was a rifle, he held it as he had seen the men do, the make-believe stock pressing into his shoulder. He squinted along it. 'Bang!' he shouted. 'Bang! Whhhiit! I killed one!' he yelled, and Iffat clapped her hands.
'Jew!' Iffat shrieked. 'Bang! Jew!' She reached up, trying to tug the stick away from her brother. 'I want it! I want to shoot too!'
Jehan turned silently to her husband. Naemuddin had raised his head and was staring at the children. Tears streaked down his parchment cheeks. 'Just listen to them!' he wept, shaking his head in immense sorrow. 'How have I allowed this to happen?'
Tamara had walked along the edge of the fields a third of the way around the settlement to her father's new house. When she got there, she knocked her rap . . . rap-rap . . . rap-rap-rap code on the front door, waited half a minute in case she'd caught him unawares, and then pressed down on the door handle. She stuck her head inside the living room. 'Father?' she called out.
'I'm in here,' he called back.
She crossed the living room and headed straight for his study. She found him seated behind his desk, his back to the open windows which looked out on to the small cobbled courtyard with its dazzling, chalky whitewashed walls.
He took off his reading glasses and pushed some papers aside as she came around the desk, bent down, and deposited a warm kiss on his cheek. 'Hello, Father,' she said. She could smell the faint, familiar smell of his sweat; he must have been labouring earlier and had not yet had a chance to shower. She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned over him, nodding at the papers strewn all over the desktop. 'Am I interrupting something?'
He twisted around and looked up at her. 'You, you can interrupt me anytime, Tamara.' He smiled. 'You know that.'
She went to the other side of the desk and sat down heavily. After making herself comfortable, she said, 'Are you ready to go over the housing problems? Or should I come back a little later?'
'Not so fast, slow down a little.' He eyed her belly solemnly. 'I take it the baby's coming along normally?'
She hesitated, the lie she had arranged with Dr. Saperstein burning at the tip of her tongue. 'Of course,' Dr. Saperstein had said to her, 'if Dani thinks there's a trap your father might walk into, then he has good reason to fear it. So I'll stretch the truth just a little. I tell you what—pretend you have premature labour pains. That should keep him here. After all, we can't allow anything to happen to him.'
How easy it would be, she thought now. In her head she could already hear herself telling him about painful cramps and suggesting that he stay close by; she would only have to say the word, and she knew he would. But now, she could tell that even her hesitation brought immediate concern to his eyes and a frown to his brow.
The lie dissolved unsaid. She just couldn't go through with it. He would worry himself sick. She couldn't do that to him.
'Everything's fine,' she assured him, 'really, it is. Dr. Saperstein thinks the baby will come right on time. Everything's A-okay,' she added, switching to English.
'Good.' He looked relieved, and then beamed paternally at her. 'You just take care.' He gestured at her belly. 'That's important cargo you're carrying in there.'
'I know.' She smiled. 'Which will it be, do you think? A boy or a girl?'
'Oh, a girl, definitely.'
'That's because you want a granddaughter,' she accused good-naturedly.
'Every grandfather wants a granddaughter.'
'And if it's a son?'
'We'll just have to leave it on a hillside then, won't we?'
'Father!' she scolded.
'Just joking. Just joking.' He held up both hands as though to fend off her protestations. Then his face grew serious. 'You know, every time I see Asa and Ari, they seem to have shot up a few more inches.' He shook his head. 'I don't see half as much of my grandchildren as I would like.'
'Is that why you keep moving further and further away from us? It took me nearly twenty minutes to get here. Your old house was a lot closer.'
'But I felt hemmed in. What's the use of living in the desert when you have houses on all four sides, and your only view is of your neighbours' windows? At the rate Ein Shmona is growing it looks like I'll have to move again soon. Another year or two, and the settlement's going to push way past here, and I'll be surrounded once again.'
'Which brings me to the reason I came here,' she said. 'We've got to discuss the housing problem. In three days' time we've got to report our findings to the kibbutz committee and make our recommendations. I want to be prepared. There are some logistics we need to have worked out.'
'Logistics,' he sighed. 'Committees. It was all so much simpler a few years ago.'
'We were much smaller a few years ago,' she pointed out. 'Now we have over three thousand inhabitants, and more arriving all the time. More people makes for more responsibilities.'
His expression was pained. 'You're beginning to sound like a politician.'
She laughed. 'I ho
pe not, but the fact of the matter remains. We've got a serious housing shortage. Out of every boat that runs the blockade, we get anywhere from ten to forty new inhabitants. And there are two boats coming in next week. That means we have to count on putting up twenty to eighty more people. Father, where are we going to put them all? Already people are doubling up in the dormitories.'
'What do you suggest we do?' he asked, his voice stern but not unkind. 'You can't expect us to help them ashore and then disappear. They have to eat and sleep. To live. Somewhere. Someone's got to give them a new start in life. That's what makes them risk their lives to get here in the first place.'
'Then we'd best make new housing our number-one aim. As it is, we might have to start putting up new arrivals in tents.'
'If we must pitch tents, then we will pitch them.'
'The point I'm trying to make, Father, is that we're not building fast enough. To speed up the process, we're going to have to bend the rules a little. Right now, six recent arrivals— three builders, two carpenters, and a stonemason—are spending all their time out in the fields picking up rocks and ploughing and hoeing and weeding. While I understand the idea behind all newcomers starting out by working in the fields, we've got to make exceptions in their cases. We have to. We need buildings more desperately than we need new fields.'
'We need both.'
'But those men are wasted in the fields! Right now we've got more than enough of a labour force for clearing and planting and harvesting, especially with the new arrivals swelling our size. If it were up to me, I'd get the trained builders out of the fields and get them building immediately. It's either that or . . .' She halted and held his gaze.
'Or what?' he asked softly.
'Or we have to cut down on accepting new residents.'
He tightened his lips. 'Newcomers are our greatest strength, for only in numbers can we become strong.' He drummed his fingernails on the desktop. 'All right,' he said at last. 'You win. We'll recommend that we must be flexible and that exceptions should be made. But for the builders only.'
She smiled. 'And that they start immediately?'
He nodded.
'Good. I don't think we'll have any trouble getting that past the committee, not if we're both agreed. But it's only a temporary solution, mind you. To keep up with the influx, we're going to have to find a way to build a lot faster. Just think what we'll be up against if the White Paper's revoked. We'll have to be ready for a flood of immigrants.'
'Prefabricated housing,' he said.
'What?' She frowned at him, her eyebrows knit.
'Prefabricated housing,' he repeated. 'An engineer in Haifa recently told me about it. What it is, is building in sections and then putting the sections together. Since we've got to find a way to come up with a lot of units fast and cheap, the way I see it, prefabrication is the only answer. It's like an assembly line. Whole walls are built, with windows, door, and all, four of them are stuck on a foundation, and a roof is put up over them. The same goes for the interior.'
'You know we can't build walls like that. That takes wood, the only resource other than water that we have a constant shortage of.'
'So? For now we can use metal. Or poured concrete.' He shrugged. 'For the time being, looks and longevity aren't half as important as having the available housing.'
'Give me the name of the engineer you spoke with and I'll start on it right away,' she promised.
'His name's Peter Highton, and he's with Rosdine Engineering. They've got a big warehouse and office at Haifa harbour.'
'Good. I'll go see him and work my charms to see if I can enlist his help.' Her green eyes locked into his. 'There's just one more thing,' she said quietly.
Alerted to her tone, he raised his eyebrows and waited.
'It's about the Philadelphie. Father, I'm begging you not to be onshore when she comes in.'
'You're worried I'll get caught?' He looked surprised. 'After all these years of eluding the authorities, you're afraid I'll get caught now?'
'Yes.' She nodded. 'You know very well that the British intend to make an example of the Philadelphie. They're going to try their damnedest to keep her from coming in and unloading the passengers. They'll probably even try to round up all the volunteers onshore as well.'
'The more important I be there,' he said staunchly.
'You're crazy!' She stared at him, blinking back a rush of tears. 'Father, I could tell you that you shouldn't be there for the sake of the twins and the baby I'm carrying, and because I'm worried for you. But I won't. The point I will make, though, is that you're indispensable. If something should happen to you, everything here would fall apart. Can't you see that?'
Schmarya kept looking at her. 'First of all,' he said softly, 'make no mistake. Everyone, including me, is dispensable. There is no such thing as an indispensable person. Not anywhere.' She started to protest, but he cut her off. 'And second, you and Dani and the others are doing such a fine job that I really wouldn't be missed. In the short run, perhaps. But in the long run?' He shook his head. 'In the long run the kibbutz would do fine.'
'Don't talk that way!' she said sharply. 'You know that you're the glue that holds everything together! There isn't a man, woman, or child here who would dream of hinting to an outsider that you're here. That's why you haven't been caught yet. It's because everyone's so devoted to you that their lips are forever sealed. So you see, you don't owe it to me, or to Dani, but to everyone not to take such a chance.' She rose from her chair and looked down at him, a pleading expression on her face. 'Please, Father, I'm begging you to stay away when the Philadelphie makes a run for it. Don't tempt fate.'
'Tamara,' he said calmly, 'don't get yourself so worked up. Stress isn't good for you right now.'
'Dammit, why do you insist on avoiding the issue?'
'I'm not avoiding it. I'll keep in mind what you've said,' he told her mildly. 'At any rate, today's only Friday. The weather has predicted calm and clear skies through the entire weekend. The Philadelphie's not going to try until there's either fog or rain to use as cover for sneaking in.' He smiled. 'So you see, it's not a matter requiring an immediate decision. We'll sleep on it, all right? Who knows what might happen between now and the time the ship runs the blockade?'
Chapter 30
The Arabs came without warning, in the hour preceding false dawn, when sleep is the deepest. By the time the alarm was sounded, they had already fanned out deep into the heart of the kibbutz. 'Arbs!' Asa shrieked from the other room as the warning bell tolled simultaneously with the first cracks of gunfire. Asa's terror condensed the two syllables into one.
In the master bedroom, Tamara jerked upright out of her sleep. Before the second burst of gunfire cracked nearby, she was already wide-awake. Instinctively she flung the covers aside and groped to switch on the bedside lamp.
The bulb glowed reassuringly.
'Turn it off!' Dani yelled. With his honed reflexes, he was already halfway to the boys' room.
Startled, she fumbled with the switch and knocked the lamp over. She reached out to catch it, but it rolled away on its shade and went crashing to the floor. The bulb shattered and the room was cast back into blackness.
'I'm getting the boys,' Dani yelled from the other room. 'Get out of bed, and for God's sake stay down!'
She did as told, crawling over the edge of the bed and letting herself drop to the floor. She landed with a clumsy thump and let out a cry. She had misjudged the extra weight of the baby and a sharp pain knifed through her left kneecap. Her hands went down on crunching shards of curved thin glass.
She sucked in her breath and cursed. The bulb. She'd embedded glass from the shattered bulb in the palms of her hands.
Damn.
Dani called out to her, 'Are you dressed?'
'No.'
'What are you waiting for! Put something on!'
She struggled in the dark with her voluminous maternity dress, got tangled up in the sleeves, forced herself to slow down, and finally ma
naged to slip it over her head. She groped desperately around for her shoes and embedded more bulb shards in her hand before she found them.
Now all hell was breaking loose outside. A woman's high-pitched scream from somewhere nearby was abruptly cut off. Then suddenly there was an explosion and the room brightened, the wall flickering. She glanced up. The window was a roaring sheet of bright orange; the house next door was on fire.
Dani crawled noisily on his belly toward her, the boys slithering behind him. 'You're dressed?'
'Yes.' She looked at him. She could make out his face clearly now; it was grim and, like everything else in the room, tinged orange. Orange and pulsating.
'Mama!' Asa said, scooting over next to Tamara. 'I'm afraid.' His blue eyes were huge with fear and he was shaking. 'Are you afraid?'
'Yes,' Tamara said softly, touching his face. 'I'm afraid too, darling. But everything's going to be all right. Your papa's here, and he'll take care of us.' She forced herself to smile reassuringly.
Asa turned to Dani. 'You'll take care of us, won't you, Papa? You'll see that the Arabs won't hurt us?'
'That's enough!' Dani said harshly. 'We're wasting time. You'll all do exactly as we've rehearsed countless times already.' He nodded to Tamara. 'Here.'
He thrust something into her hand. It felt heavy and cold and oily. She looked down. It was the American revolver, the .44 with the inordinately long, evil barrel.
She looked at him speechlessly.
'Now follow me,' he ordered. 'We have to get out of here before we're all trapped.'
Like crabs in a speeded-up film, he and the boys scuttled effortlessly into the next room on their bellies, but with her own giant belly in the way, and being careful so as not to jar the unborn baby, Tamara could only crawl on her hands and knees, and at half-speed at that. At the front door Dani waited for her to catch up. Then, signalling for her and the boys to keep down, he leaped up, flattened himself against the wall beside the door, and gingerly reached for the door handle. He flung the door wide and it banged against the opposite side of the wall. The air smelled acrid now, heavy with smoke and cordite.