by Yoram Kaniuk
I sat there smoking, an exhilarating breeze was blowing and clean deep air entered me. From the Keite Dan Hotel a tall, charming lady emerged wearing a silk dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat, and smiled at me. I smiled back. She said she knows my uncle Yosef, the handsomest man in the country, and said that I should be cautious of beauty, beauty is something fatal, people are frightened of beauty, they want to take revenge on it. She was very beautiful, a long noble face like in a Botticelli painting. I took a Players from the packet of ten I’d bought earlier at a kiosk on Ben-Yehuda Street, and the woman, who smelled of face powder and a pleasing eau de cologne, bent down to me—I came up to her bosom—lit my cigarette with a gold-plated lighter, looked at me, and said, You really are a lovely boy just as your uncle Yosef was, you’ve got thick hair, and take care. And then a black taxi pulled up whose green number plate bore three digits, 333—I liked the fact that it was 333—and with a floating pirouette the thin and magnificent giantess got into the taxi and disappeared forever. I carried on smoking, facing the waves on Frishman Beach, and thought in the second person. Yoram, what exactly are you doing here? What blood is lying there dead with my father, and both must be avenged?
In July the illegal immigrant ship Exodus sailed along the coast and on the Haganah* radio we heard the commander speak, and the country was abuzz with rumors. The ship’s passengers were deported back to Germany, and then United Nations delegates called for the establishment of two states in Palestine, and the land rejoiced and was happy. The trees rejoiced. The electric poles rejoiced. The tin baths on the roof rejoiced. And when November came everyone stood outdoors or crowded around those who owned a radio and laughed, happier than they’d ever been or would ever be again, and they counted the votes from the United Nations anxiously, excitedly, aggressively, pleadingly, believingly. Through the open windows, in the cafés, the cobblers’ shops, the bakeries—everyone was shouting the count as if it were a prayer. Thousands of people chanted together, One, two, three, four … and then came the trumpet blast. Two thousand years of exile and fear and humiliation had come to an end. We danced in the streets. On the corner of Dizengoff and Frishman there was a vacant lot facing the area on which the Cameri Theatre would later be built, and people brought wood for a bonfire and the café owners brought drinks and we danced all night long, and first thing the next morning the war broke out.
Shooting at intercity transport began. There were already dead and wounded. The Palmach reserve units were recalled to service, and one morning on the corner of Ruppin Street and Keren Hakayemet Boulevard I overheard a conversation between two older guys. One of them said, I told my father this morning that I’d gone back to the Palmach, and he said that when you want to piss, your belly wants to, your eyes want to, your hands want to, but in the end what pisses is the putz.
I got out of there and that night went to see Tony, my school principal, whose life partner, Gustav, was a big expert on Fichte and Schelling, but here he swept Dizengoff Street with a big broom, and Tony would run after him with sandwiches so he’d eat, and in the meantime he taught me philosophy. Tony saw me coming, but her attention was fixed on Gustav and she got up onto the sidewalk and stood facing him, and she came up to his belt that was held in place by a nail he’d found in the road, and the chicken mayonnaise sandwich flew from her hand, and a dog barked, and she called Gustav liebchen, and that gentle giant bent and kissed her, and how much beauty there was in that kiss. And suddenly the image of the man who came to see my father came back to me. What was it in the man’s eyes then? Contempt or envy? Afterward they’d shouted in German. I was tired. I fell asleep walking and was unable to speak. Tony walked me to the corner of Keren Hakayemet and said, Go and sleep now, come back tomorrow only at nine, sleep, little one.
I returned the next day to Tony the principal, the most wonderful woman I’d ever met, she was standing facing the sea by a thick-branched tree in the yard of the school she had founded, and I told her I was joining the Palyam. She was angry and asked me to wait. She said I should wait until I had a matriculation certificate. I explained something. She was sad. I could see that she understood me, but still she didn’t agree.
Yochanan Krasner’s father, who was an important functionary in the Haganah and rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, told me that if I really wanted to enlist, I should go secretly to a small button shop on Dizengoff Street near Nordau Boulevard. I went there and said that the man with the Harley-Davidson had sent me, and the man in the shop said that he knows a man like that, his son’s called Yaki, and he knows him well, and I told him that his son’s name is Yochanan, and then his manner softened and he sent me to Ben-Yehuda Street near Vilna Street, to a shop that also sold buttons, and there a redheaded young man told me to come back the next day. I went back. He said, Listen kid, in the building you live in, there’s an office on the third floor. I was surprised. There were two apartments there—one belonged to Mrs. Kramsky and the other to Oded Nachmani, who worked in the Histadrut*.
I walked down the stairs from my parents’ apartment and knocked on the door. A guy opened it and asked for the password, I said, You know me, I live upstairs, and he slammed the door. I knocked again, he opened the door, and I asked, Does the man from the Histadrut live here? The guy said, Who’s asking, and I said, I think the password’s “buttons.” He asked, What buttons? I said, Round ones, and he said, Go to Nachalat Binyamin Street, next to Schwarz’s fabric shop, and ring twice, somebody will shout something and you sing the song “You have to ring twice, you have to wait a moment,” and do whatever the person who opens the door tells you.
That was the song they sang when the city filled up with new immigrants and they had to be housed in small apartments and there weren’t any telephones, and whoever wanted to see the new neighbor would ring twice. I sang “You have to ring twice,” and a short girl appeared who looked every which way before leading me into a dark hallway and putting a pillowcase over my head. We walked a short distance, climbed two floors, came down again and went up again in order to hoodwink the enemy, and the whole time she remained silent. I tried to speak, but she put her hand over my mouth through the pillowcase and stopped me, and I was finally led into an apartment. The pillowcase was removed and in the darkness I could see a few young men talking in whispers. One asked me, Who is “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth,’ and what is “A damsel, two damsels to every man,” and where is it taken from, and what does the acronym “Palmach” mean? They wanted to make sure I wasn’t an enemy. After I’d given them the correct answers, and they were particularly surprised that I knew that “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth” meant the Prophet Isaiah’s son, they asked why I’d come. I lied and said that my parents were Revisionists*, and I also lied by telling them I was eighteen. They were pleased that a youngster from the other side of the political map wanted to enlist, and after a few more questions, with the room still darkened, they swore me in on the flag, the Bible, and a pistol. They gave me a brown round tin used for Atara coffee, and told me it contained a Mills bomb and I had to take a No. 7 bus from the central station on Geula Street, take the box as far as the seminar, and come back. I was scared by anyone who looked like a British detective. When I got back a man opened the tin and showed me that all it contained was an iron shot used by the Hapoel Tel Aviv athletes, and explained that it had been an exercise in courage. He told me to be at the central bus station in two days at eight in the morning.
I left a goodbye letter for my parents. At the station, not far from the main ticket office, stood a young man who’d apparently been soaked by the rain. He was holding a damp Davar newspaper, and his head was buried in it. I had to pass him three times at a slow walk and then approach him and ask him which bus goes to Netanya. I walked by him three times, counting my steps, I was excited, I halted, he gave me a squinty glance and pretended not to see me. I asked him if by any chance he knew which bus goes to Netanya. He lowered his paper and glanced at me and said, Young man, I’m not the informat
ion desk. I regained my senses and said, To work. To defense. To the kibbutz. To agricultural training. His expression changed and he looked behind him and to the sides, and said as if talking to someone else, We should go up. I answered, For we are well able to overcome it. He added, The usurper of the teacher’s prerogative, and I answered, Deserves to be bitten by a snake. He softened and became almost friendly and asked my name, and I told him. He turned around, took a sheet of paper from his pocket, studied it, and said, Don’t be sorry, I read a poem you sent to the editor Shlonsky, a great poet you won’t be, try something else.
Then he said, Listen, you make out like you’re going to Haifa with a ticket I’ll give you but you’re only going as far as Hadera. You get off and walk around by the toilets, and try to look like you’re from Hadera and don’t draw attention to yourself. Walk quietly toward the sea. I asked him how you don’t draw attention to yourself and how you look like you’re from Hadera. He folded up his newspaper and walked slowly back and forth, screwed up his eyes, as if he were facing the sun, and tried to draw his head into his hunched shoulders. People looked at him dumbfounded. Fortunately he didn’t see them and said, That’s how you walk. From Hadera you walk west, more or less, in the direction of the sea, you’ll smell it and in the distance you’ll see the Caesarea mosque, and from there go to Kibbutz Sdot Yam. And make sure you’re not seen. And if you’re stopped by the British, say you’re looking for antiquities.
I got onto the Haifa bus, which as usual stopped in Hadera. Like everyone else I went to the kiosk and bought a glass of soda water for five mils. I looked around and checked out the area and made myself transparent and walked quickly to the toilets at the rear. I saw two drivers smoking by a planter with wilted flowers and hurried away and did another diversion and trod on some couch grass. There was a beautiful solitary anemone there and I moved surreptitiously between sycamore and cypress, and all the thickly foliaged eucalyptuses shaded me as I walked, and I sank into the sand. It wasn’t too cold. The sand was enormous. The bushes were damp and spread onto the sand. It was clear and November and you could see the glint of the distant sea. I was tired and sat down atop a hummock. I felt elation and like a prophet declaimed: “Thy beauty, O Israel, upon thy high places is slain! How are the mighty fallen.” That’s the kind of schmucks we were back then. Suddenly a couple emerged who looked like penguins glistening in the sun. They were wet and she was big and her eyes were blue and she looked at me smilingly, and the man got angry in an unfamiliar language. She said, Young man. She knew that word in Hebrew. The man, still dripping water, got mad at her in their language, she laughed and hugged him, and he said to me in his best biblical Hebrew, Piss off, can’t you see what’s happening here?
I carried on walking and reached the kibbutz gate, tired from the difficult trudge through the damp sand. The man at the gate asked, Are you the new guy? Yes, I said. Are you for the course? he asked. Yes, I said. He said, Don’t dare say that aloud again. I said I was thirsty from the walk and perhaps he had a glass of water for me. He said, Look son, first of all you report to Chana. I asked, Who’s Chana? He said, You don’t ask questions like that here. I said, If I’d asked where’s the woman you call Chana, what would you have said? He didn’t fall into the trap and said, You don’t look for Chana, you find her. You’ll get some water only after Chana says you’re okay.
I walked along the paths of the small kibbutz and saw a young woman and I was scared to ask her, and then a grumpy elderly man passed me wheeling a bicycle and I asked him about Chana, and he said that she’s a snake charmer and everybody’s scared of her but she’s a lovely person, and he directed me to a hut not far away. I went into what was an office, and a huge woman gave me a glass of water and said that here I’d have to obey orders because I’d sworn on the Bible. My name’s Chana, and you don’t ask questions, I’ve got a heroic boyfriend who’s defending you right now, and this is also a kind of clinic. She pointed at a shelf and said, There’s black ointment for cuts and iodine and bandages. The white pills are for sore throats, earache, and fever. The red pills at the side are for stomachache and broken legs and arms. I asked, What if I get bitten by a snake? Nonsense, she replied. I said, Last year at the youth movement camp at Hefzibah I was bitten by a viper, and they put me in a hammock, and someone sucked out the venom, and there weren’t any drugs, and the pain was unbearable. The white ones are also good for snakebites, she said. Did you know that the Arabs have got lots of names for the camel and only one for all the snakes? Did you know that ants have got five noses? I didn’t. She showed me the way to a big boat shed, and from there somebody showed me the way to a big corrugated iron hut.
I went inside and there was nobody there. There were forty beds, twenty on each side, and I began looking for a place for my stuff. In my knapsack I’d brought a set of colored pencils and I drew undisturbed for about two hours and I stuck the picture on the wall above me. Some young guys came in and yelled, What’s your name, and some told me their name, and they all sat down on their beds, and one lay down on the bed opposite me and fell asleep. My neighbor to the left said, The one who’s asleep is Michael, he’s an illegal immigrant, he doesn’t eat lettuce, he thinks it’s cow fodder. Michael woke up and saw the drawing and started shouting, Germans, Germans, and somebody took down the drawing and ripped it up. Afterward he told me that he’d done it not only for Michael’s sake but because here you’re a grown-up guy. Grown-up guys don’t draw. My little brother Moishele draws, you’re in the navy now and you don’t do kid’s crap.
Nine
We’d be woken up at five in the morning by loud banging on the corrugated iron, we ran to the sea in swimming trunks, shivering with cold, and we swam. At first three kilometers and later five, and then we’d do fifteen minutes of backbreaking physical exercises, still in our wet swimming trunks, then shower in cold water, dress quickly, and run to the dining hall. We’d have a little bread, eggplant, white cheese, drink lukewarm chicory coffee, and chew a dry cookie. After that we’d rest for half an hour and smoke, and then training would begin. When a storm came up at night we’d be woken up and run down to the beach. It was cold and wet. We’d pull the boats out of the water and chant in time, Fuck you, Bevin, and not one of us had the faintest idea why. The illegal immigrants who’d come on the ships didn’t manage to reach the shore, and no Palyam boat was waiting for them. The Palyam guys worked on the ships as escorts not deckhands, and many of them didn’t even know how to swim. Back then the immigrants were brought to the foreign ports through the mountains and the snow, and most of the time the sea was rough.
We were given lectures on navigation, sails, and sailing, and we trained by running and carrying stick rifles with improvised bayonets. And Chana—who could move a house without breaking a sweat, who beat all the heroes of the Palmach at arm wrestling, and who cried only once in her life when a woman from “there” told her about an aktion—shouted at us as we ran with fixed bayonets, I want to see a smile on your faces when you stick those Germans. I asked her if I’d have to smile in the war as I ran with my bayonet to kill the enemy, and she asked the commanding officer to give me a pep talk.
The commanding officer had very few words in his repertoire but he was known as a man who almost got killed bringing immigrants ashore and he really knew how to shout. In his hoarse voice he tried to explain to me about the struggle and the need to vanquish the enemy, and I said that I accept all that but why have we got to smile when running with our bayonets. He didn’t reply, and Chana, who’d forgotten she was mad at me, took us out to the sand dunes. An officer I didn’t know brought a pistol and fifty rounds, and each of us fired his first and last shot on the course with live ammunition, before the battles that lay ahead. When I fired my hand was shaking, my arm hurt, and Chana gave me a red pill and said that it looked like I had a stomachache. I explained that I didn’t, and she said it was already too late and in any case she didn’t have any other pills and if you do get a stomachache, she said, the pill will he
lp anyway, and if not, it won’t do any harm.
In the ideological talks on cold and rainy winter evenings, as we sat in the boathouse that was built of tin that amplified the sound of the raindrops, we were taught what life was like in the Jewish army, and we said that we’d volunteered for the Palmach, partisans and not an army, and we were told that it’s just like an army and orders must be obeyed because the Jewish Yishuv* expected us to be prepared for any mission.
One day we were taken deep into the dunes. It was already dusk. We had a parade. It wasn’t raining. The wind sighed. We practiced concealment. Chana bellowed at every one of us to try and crawl but we had no idea about how to get deeper into the sand. On the way back I got a thorn in my foot. I sat alone facing the sea and smoked. I recalled one of father’s stories: A man held a bar mitzvah celebration for his son and invited guests, and they came to celebrate and drink and he asked his son to climb up into the loft and bring down a cask of wine, and the boy climbed up, was bitten by a snake, and didn’t return. The man climbed up to see what had happened and saw his son lying dead, and he climbed down and ate and drank with his guests and they praised the boy and in the end asked, When is the celebration? You came to celebrate, he said, and now you are mourners. My father liked that story and the pain in my foot was appropriate to the memory. I missed the smoke from my father’s pipe. I missed the sea from our balcony. There was only the sea at Caesarea.
On the course—half of whose participants would later be killed, and they wouldn’t be killed in boats but on the way to Jerusalem, at Saris, the Castel, and Nabi Samwil—was a small, painfully thin young woman, who looked like a leaf on the wind and was foreign to us, as if she’d come from nowhere. It was said she’d been a member of Lehi, that she’d killed a British sergeant, and it was also said she’d had a fling with him beforehand or maybe later, and then killed him. They said it was nothing, but for me it was the first time I’d thought about the splendor of betrayal. I thought that perhaps there was no true love unless it was for someone who’d died.