by Judith Gould
He slid his head around the doorframe for the merest fraction of a second and then flattened himself against the wall again. He was holding his rifle upright with one hand. The crackling of the flames was loud and hellish.
'Now!' he screamed. 'Asa, Ari—go!'
The boys went out just as they'd practised it during the weekly drills. On their bellies, their elbows flapping like seals' fins, they dashed for the stoop, dived and went flying while Dani covered them with bursts of gunfire. When they hit the ground, they rolled over twice and waited.
Dani peered around the door again, got off two more shots, and brought his free hand slashing down. 'Tamara—go!'
She clenched her teeth and crawled like mad. The three steps were concrete and murderous on her bleeding hands and knees. When she reached the boys, she looked back at the house. Dani was coming out in a running crouch, the carbine blazing. He dived to the ground beside her. 'Keep down,' he whispered fiercely between clenched teeth.
'I'm trying,' she hissed, 'but I can't squash the baby!'
'Now, listen carefully, all of you,' he said, his words quick but his voice calm. 'Don't panic. Pretend this is a drill. Head for the community hall and stay there. You'll be safe; it's the best-protected building we have. Now, go! All of you!'
The boys wiggled away like tadpoles, digging their elbows into the hard ground and pulling themselves along while flinging themselves from side to side as they gained extra speed with their knees. Tamara hesitated. 'What are you going to do?'
'Forget about me!' Dani hissed harshly, his eyes flashing. 'I'll stay behind to cover you. Get moving!' He gave her such a painful shove that she cried out. Then she lifted her head to get her bearings. Bullets whined so close by that she swore she could feel their wind. The dirt beside her exploded into a cloud of dust.
That got her crawling. Scampering on her hands and knees, her heavy belly nearly grazing the ground, she zigzagged her way, trying to minimize herself as a target. There was chaos all around.
It was like a scene out of Armageddon. Bullets whistled in every direction. Explosions rocked the ground and blasted soil sky-high. She could hear the high-pitched screaming of children somewhere in the distance and prayed to God that they were not her own. Like shadow puppets gone wild, silhouettes darted madly back and forth in front of the burning house next door, the orange flames licking and leaping out of the windows and casting shadows of enormous malevolent demons. Then someone threw something through one of the windows and there was a whooosh! as the frenzy of flames was fed. A screaming man, his blazing clothes turning him into a human torch, staggered out of the front door, turned three slow-motion circles, and then fell facedown in silence, not eight feet from Tamara.
Her nose caught the stench of burning flesh and she almost retched.
It's like pork, she thought hysterically. Human flesh smells like roasting pork.
She scuttled away, past one house and then another, heading toward the centre of the kibbutz. The buildings were built closer together now, affording more protection. She staggered to her feet and, keeping her torso bent forward, scrambled for the safety of the nearest thick stone wall. She slid around it and straightened. She was gasping for breath, and inside her she could feel the baby kicking. She put her hands on her belly and massaged gently. Despite the chill of the night, she was hot and drenched with sweat.
Finally she began to breathe more easily. She peered cautiously around the corner of the wall, back the way she had come.
It was too late to wish she hadn't.
Dark, long-robed figures were leaping in dervish dances. Knife blades caught the sheen of the fire and reflected orange slivers. She could hear cries of 'Allahu Akbar!' as they rushed forward. A machine gun atop the blazing house mowed down a row of them, as though cutting their legs out from under them. There was a chorus of screams as they fell forward, their rifles catapulting in midair. Arabs.
She watched, frozen with morbid fascination, as one of the figures leapt up and an arm arced gracefully, as if lobbing a football. Instinctively she drew her head back and flattened herself against the wall. The ground shook mightily and the night seemed to explode in a split-second fireball. The machine-gun chatter stopped abruptly. Her ears were ringing.
She peered around the corner again. The Arabs had gained. They were closer now. Much closer. And then, suddenly, men without robes jumped out in front of them. Rifle bursts flashed and exploded. One of the Arabs shrieked and fell to his knees, clutching his belly before he fell headfirst to the ground. Arabs and Jews were face-to-face now. Bayonets stabbed; rifle stocks became clubs.
She had to get to the centre of the kibbutz. To safety.
Ducking, she zigzagged from house to house, trying to put as many walls between herself and the bullets as possible. She cursed her belly. It was slowing her down. Without it, she could have crawled off as swiftly as the boys.
Suddenly she sucked in her breath. An Arab had leapt from around the corner of the next house, his carbine levelled at her.
She froze in her tracks, time ceased to exist. The world slowed to half-speed, like a film in slow motion. Curiously, she felt no fear, only surprise. She could see the fanatical eyes flashing wild hatred; she could sense him lining her up in his sights and squeezing the trigger. Even the shot, when it came, seemed to happen in slow motion.
And then Dani came racing toward her, and everything sped up once again. 'Tamara!' he bellowed, leaping to tackle her in order to shove her to safety while his own carbine blasted the Arab off his feet.
But the Arab had already fired, and Dani was too late.
Tamara's mouth gaped open and her eyes widened as something exploded in her abdomen. She found herself flying backward, off her feet, as if a massive gust of wind had sent her sprawling. Then she crumpled and fell heavily on her back, rocked forward on her buttocks, and fell back one last time, her arms spreading out as though she'd been crucified.
Dani didn't bother crawling to her; he dived six feet to where she'd fallen.
She tried to raise her head, but it wouldn't lift. She stared up at him, her eyes wide and confused. 'Dani,' she whispered, 'what's happened?'
'You were shot, darling. Shushhhh . . .' His voice was muffled, as if her ears were filled with cotton.
'The baby,' she whispered, her words slurred. One arm moved and she gripped Dani's shirt so fiercely he nearly choked. 'Our baby!' Tears formed in her eyes. 'The baaabbbyyy . . .' Her hand loosened from his collar and fell, and then she was still.
Chapter 31
There was no moon to light their way, but it was a blessing in disguise; neither was there a moon to give them away.
Now that the time was nearing, the men began to prepare their weapons. They had slept all day, hidden in the shadows of the sawtooth mountains, which had soaked up the heat of the sun and trapped the simmering air, and then, when the temperature had plunged, they had waited patiently through most of the chilly night. The desert was eerily disturbing in its intense and utter silence.
The oasis was less silent, but no less disturbing: overhead, date palms scratched frond against frond; below, the herd of goats rustled uneasily in sleep and a single dog growled every now and then, its nose sniffing the air. Three times Dani had left his men to slip silently into the night, invisible in the darkness, and reconnoitred the perimeter of the oasis, the last time, an hour ago, actually slipping unnoticed into its very heart. What he found did not gladden him, but eased his tension. There were three men on guard; two were asleep and the third was smoking carelessly.
He nodded to himself: retaliation was not seriously expected, or else the guards would have been more aware.
He returned to his group of handpicked men and materialized out of the darkness. 'We wait until after morning prayers,' he said softly with the patience of the hunter.
The men understood. They were going to wait for the dawn, when the muezzin would call the Muslim faithful to morning prayer. Dani was bitter and there was no mercy
in his heart, just as there was none in theirs. The attack would begin after the prayers were said: the people of al-Najaf would need the opportunity to make peace with God.
When dawn lightened the sky in the east, Dani gathered the men around him. 'An eye for an eye,' he said grimly. 'One house burned, three dead, and six wounded. No more, no less.' He looked at Schmarya.
'So be it,' Schmarya pronounced.
They fanned out soundlessly, surrounding the oasis and moving into their predetermined positions. There they waited, hidden and silent, while the oasis was coming awake. Doors opened, and people came outside, going about their morning business. Women fetched pitchers of water. Smoke began to curl from chimneys. Then the muezzin climbed the steps to the minaret of the tiny stone mosque and called them to morning prayer, his singsong words echoing monotonously. Everyone, the guards included, stopped what he was doing, cleansed himself ritually, and turned southeast toward Mecca. Everyone dropped to their knees and prayed. All was peaceful at al-Najaf. All was well.
The twelve men from Ein Shmona double-checked their weapons. Dani peered out from behind a rock, waiting to fire off the first shot, which would sound the signal for the attack to begin twenty seconds later. Moishe Karavan, who was positioned nearest the houses, transferred gasoline from a can into a bottle, stuffed a gasoline-soaked rag into its neck, and held matches at the ready. Schmarya, catching sight of Naemuddin, felt a wave of guilt and anguish and bent his head in silent prayer. He was glad that Dani had decided to wait until after morning prayer to attack. The families of those who would die would at least be assured that their loved ones would enter Paradise.
Prayers over, the people of al-Najaf went about their daily affairs, happily ignorant of the attack in store for them. The three guards shouldered their rifles, smoking and chattering in a group, unknowingly calling attention to themselves as easy targets.
'They have prayed,' Dani told himself through clenched teeth. 'Now we shall see if they are ready to die.' He fired once into the air to give fair warning for the women and children to seek safety, and then he counted to twenty. Shrieks of terror rent the quiet as mothers snatched up their children and scattered in panic while the men dashed indoors to fetch weapons. Caught by surprise, the three guards fired blindly, foolishly staying together in a tight group. They were felled instantly by a fusillade of shots that hit true. Dani nodded to himself with satisfaction. It was going exactly as planned: the dead guards were the revenge for the dead of Ein Shmona; that left one house to destroy and four men to wound.
He covered Moishe while his friend made a mad dash with the flaming bottle. Moishe had kept his eye peeled for a house into which none of the women and children had fled, presuming it to be empty. Reaching it, he chucked the bottle inside, and there was an immediate explosion. An orange fireball burst out the door as if to chase him away, and the house became a roaring inferno.
Dani covered Moishe with a spray of bullets, aiming to wound, not kill. The shrieks and screams coming from the women and children were cries of terror, not pain, of that Dani was certain. He had given the men explicit instructions: harming women and children was to be avoided at all costs.
By this time the men of al-Najaf had had time to snatch their weapons, and there was heated return fire, puffballs marking the positions of resistance. Moishe let out a scream as a bullet felled him, but it was a minor injury and he painfully crawled to safety.
There were no firearms in the house of peace-loving Naemuddin and Jehan, his wife, and so they returned no fire. At the sound of the first shot, Naemuddin had pulled his wife down to the floor and instructed her to stay put. His face was contorted with anguish and his voice was filled with rage. 'Abdullah has brought this upon us!' he roared, and then hurried outside to try to put a stop to the madness. Moments later a stray bullet smashed into his shoulder and whirled him around. He fell heavily. Jehan, hearing his cry of pain, disregarded his instructions and ran outside to pull him to safety. She offered up a prayer of thanks that it was only a flesh wound, not fatal, and immediately put water on the stove to boil.
Abdullah was enraged. He had been hoping for a retaliatory attack, knowing that nothing would fuel the fires of hatred quite as powerfully as the deaths of innocents. Armed as always, he had been prepared and had dived for shelter behind a low wall, and had been the first to return fire. He had warned the guards to be alert, but they had failed. Seeing them fall, he cursed them: they deserved to die. They had been lax, and he hoped they went straight to hell.
But the retaliatory attack was not going as Abdullah had hoped. The Jews were careful shots. From what he could see, not one woman or child had been hit. He cursed again. Already the sounds of gunfire were slowing.
It was then that he caught sight of little Iffat, his half-niece. She was crouched behind a stone wall not twenty-five feet in front of him. He looked around furtively. No one could see; everyone was hiding or busy shooting. She would be a worthy sacrifice, a sacrifice necessary to catapult the mourning of the dead men and the hatred of the Jews to extreme, fever pitch.
He trained his sights on her and pulled the trigger.
He lowered his rifle and smiled, satisfied. Her death would be blamed on the Jews.
Dani had kept tabs; the moment he counted three killing shots, four wounded men, and the fire, he gave the signal for his men to retreat. Two of them grabbed Moishe under his armpits and dragged him with them. They left as suddenly as they had come.
The attack had taken less than two minutes.
Schmarya had not fired a single shot.
Chapter 32
The moment the men returned from the retaliatory raid, Dani headed straight for the infirmary.
'She's stable,' Dr. Saperstein told him.
'Can I see her now?'
'Against my better judgment, I will give you five minutes with her.' The doctor wagged an admonishing finger. 'Not one minute longer. I don't want you to tire her.'
'Right now, even five minutes is the gift of a lifetime,' Dani said.
He went into her room and pulled a chair close to the bedside. He sank down on it, hating the heavy medicinal odour and the way Tamara was laid out so still and straight, with her head precisely centred on the pillow. His heart stopped beating and he was afraid she was dead. It was too corpse-like a pose, the white sheet too smooth and shroudlike. For the first time he noticed isolated strands of silver here and there in her silky white-blond hair. Her skin was drawn and like chalk, so curiously translucent that he could make out every ridge of her facial bones.
She looks old, he thought, a coming attraction of what she will look like at sixty-five . . . seventy. Still beautiful, but extremely fragile and bony.
On their honeymoon, she had teased, 'Will you still love me when I'm old and ugly?' They had both laughed.
A tear formed in one eye, trickled slowly down his cheek. Yes, yes I will, he swore in his mind.
He reached under the sheet and took her hand gently, feeling pain at its rubbery limpness, but immense relief at its warmth. She was alive.
'Tamara.' His voice came out a choked croak, barely more than a whisper.
She lay motionless, her breathing so soundless that he had to strain to make certain her lungs were still working.
Wake up, my darling, he willed her silently. Come out of it, please. Without you, life is nothing. Nothing.
'Darling. Darling!' He pressed her fingers, desperately seeking a response.
Tamara's eyelids quivered and then, ever so slowly, opened.
'Darling, can you hear me?'
She felt so weak, so disoriented. She tried to lift her head, but moving was too much of an effort, too taxing . . . impossible. She shifted her eyes—even that taking an immense amount of concentration—trying to catch as much within her field of vision as possible. But everything looked murky, lost in a grey fog. She could hear . . . voices. No, one voice, distant, distorted, and disjointed. That was what had reached down, down into her sleep, that voice an
d . . . and a touch.
She concentrated deeply, trying to will the fog away, but it only darkened and shifted, taking on a vague face like the faces children imagine they can see in puffy clouds.
Her lips parted a crack but barely moved. 'Da . . . ni?' It was a mere hint of a whisper, the barest exhalation of breath.
'Tamara, yes, darling. It's me.' It sounded muffled, like words uttered from a face buried deep in a pillow. She sensed more than heard them. Why didn't he speak up?
'Da . . . ni,' she repeated with supreme effort, slightly louder this time.
It was so hard to speak. The words and thoughts formed in her mind, but her lips, would barely move to let them out. It took such effort to get anything out at all. Where am I? Why can't I move? Things aren't usually in this kind of a fog. What's the matter with me?
'Thank God, Tamara.' His voice seemed a little clearer to her now. 'Oh, thank God.' She felt him lift her hand, holding it against . . . yes, against his lips. She attempted a smile, but her feeble lips merely shifted a fraction of an emotion.
Still, it was a ghost of a smile, and he didn't miss it. He felt like jumping for joy.
'Don't worry, darling. Everything is fine,' he said, the tears running down both cheeks now. 'Dr. Saperstein says you're going to be all right. You're over the worst of it. Thank God!'
She was tired. So very tired. Eyelids so heavy . . .
Another thought wiggled toward her, and this time she snatched it before it could get away. She forced her lips to form the words.
'The . . . baby.'
'The baby's fine, darling! Just fine!' His words tumbled out in such an exuberant rush that most of them flew past her in a blur. 'It's what we wanted, darling. A girl.' He squeezed her fingers again. 'Oh, she's premature, yes, but hanging on. Tough. A real trouper. Like you.'