by Meyer Levin
After the seven days of mourning, Chava closed up her house, asking Leah to take the chickens and the goat. Issachar Bronescu’s daughter Malka was soon to be married; he would arrange for his son-in-law to take over the Kleinman meshek.
The American reaping machine Chava gave to Gidon. Then she returned with her daughters to her sister in Omaha, Nebraska.
Yankel never again bathed in his mikveh. It was contaminated.
* * * *
The feast was held. Mansour the mukhtar and several elders of Dja’adi, together with Sheikh Ibrim, the father and grandfather of many, expressed their anger at the ugly deed that had been uncovered. It was surely the new bandits of the Three Rocks that had done it, they kept repeating, and they surely had taken Hawadja Kleinman’s fine mare.
The ancient Ibrim fell into talk with Menahem and spoke of that first pair of bandits who had made an evil place of the Three Rocks—the sons of Faud of Fuleh, whom he had known in former times, a worthless one, a hyena. He was no longer in Fuleh? Ah, then Faud had surely gone back to the Zbeh with his remaining sons, or his grandsons, who must now be grown. It could well be that the same bad hyena blood was in them, and that, hearing there was trouble, they had come racing to pick off what could be picked off. And it was the fate of the American to have run into their path.
His yellowed eyes peeped into Menahem’s.
—So it must have been, the men of Dja’adi repeated all around them, to Reuven, to Menahem again, to all who would listen, and who could say otherwise?
It was indeed a big sulha, with notables from as far as Nazareth, even Saïd Hourani himself on the Arab side, to show how good was the peacemaking, for should not the sons of Abraham, cousins and brothers, dwell side by side in peace? The Kaymakam from Tiberias also arrived, Azmani Bey in his fez, and for the Jews, Yehoshua Ostrov could be seen in his flowing Arab robes, and the smiling Jacques Samuelson as well; and Galil arrived at the head of a delegation of the Shomer, their bandoliers resplendent, their rifles highly polished, their steeds caparisoned with tassels.
The Chaimovitch family walked up through the fields together with other families of the village, while the young men, Gidon among them, formed a galloping troop, wearing Arab keffiyahs, pulling up with their steeds pawing the air. Then suddenly a group of mounted Arabs galloped out to greet them, the mukhtar’s son in the lead, howling as they sped, whirling and also pulling up short, their mounts pawing the air; then the two groups of horsemen charged abreast in a race over the hill to the open field before the village.
Here the feast was spread. To begin with, platters of fine goat cheese, olives, pomegranates, grapes, jugs of cool lebeniyah, baked eggs, and piles of warm pittah. From the Jewish side, heaps of gefulte fish and potato pancakes and preserves and Feigel’s thin-flaked strudels alongside the thin-crusted honeycakes of Dja’adi.
Over smoldering live embers the spitted sheep were crackling, and in the center, the mukhtar’s own contribution, tended by a specialist from Kfar Kana—a whole calf, inside of which there was a roast lamb, inside of which was a dove.
The notables of both sides greeted each arrival with embraces, pledges of eternal friendship: Are we not all sons of Abraham!
From behind the crowd now came Schmulik, leading a finely caparisoned mount. Though his every sinew throbbed to ride her, Gidon took over the halter and led the noble animal to the center of the open circle, presenting her to Fawzi.
The young men fell on each other’s necks, embracing in brotherhood.
Among all the men who were there, who could not recognize at once that this was the most perfect, the swiftest, mare to be found in the souk of Damascus, white, with an arched tail and lean withers, a steed of the sort that was bound to become legendary.
Fawzi mounted. In the very first race he was ahead of the whole field, like a flying banner.
Mati found himself alongside Abdul, with whom, that day in the barley field, he had begun the scuffle that ended in bloodletting. On Mati’s back was the scar which Abdul now touched and examined, running his fingers along it, and then showing on his own body various wounds and scars from that day and from other times. Watching the horsemanship games, they laughed together when an awkward rider lost his balance and half tumbled from his saddle. After many riders had missed, it was Gidon whose lance pierced the tiny red handkerchief that hung from the branch of an oak. Great cries arose from both sides at his perfect horsemanship.
The women of Dja’adi appeared, carrying large circular trays of lamb and rice. With great forethought, the animals had been brought to Yavniel for slaughtering, and all had been prepared the Jewish way. “Kasher, kasher,” the mukhtar assured the guests, and many, even of the older ones, though Yankel smilingly refrained, tore off pieces of meat with their fingers and dipped hunks of pittah to scoop up rice, all smacking their lips and exclaiming over the excellence of the feast. Then to Issachar Bronescu was given the honor of slicing open the roasted calf, and after him the Arab mukhtar, Mansour, ceremoniously cut open the lamb within the calf, and held aloft the dove.
Eyes were already puffed with overeating, but the feast was renewed with great compliments. Young lads of Dja’adi formed a line with Fawzi at the head. A drumbeat began; straight-backed with arms straight down at their sides, clasped hand to hand, they began to stamp out the debka, Fawzi’s free hand waving a kerchief, as he whirled up in sudden leapings, with high calls of song. At one moment Fawzi swept Gidon into their line, into the leader’s place, handing him the kerchief to whirl. Straight as young trees, their feet moving ever more swiftly in perfect unison, the young men danced.
Leah, flushed, happy, could scarcely keep her feet on the ground. Reuven’s whole kvutsa was there, Old Gordon as well, and chaverim from Kinnereth and Gilboa. Standing with Leah, Reuven’s feet too began the movement, brother and sister caught into the Arab ululation with a Yahalili! and already they were in a hora circle, their feet stamping the ground. Old Gordon was on Leah’s other side—it was like the early days. “Yahalili!” A chaver had brought an accordion along, and he picked up the beat. Several young Arab lads were drawn into the hora, stomping in the circle while the Arab girls moved closer and laughed more freely. Songs rose, in Arabic, in Hebrew, and of the elders all wore beatific smiles, as to say at heart we are all alike, all friendly. People passed food to each other insistently—fruits, delicacies—and those who drank filled each other’s cups with wine, and all declared and truly felt they were as one, that each people was good, that they were good neighbors and true friends.
Yet, beyond the warmth of a pledged friendship, of knowledge of healed wounds on both sides, beyond exclamations of good will, what could each group say to the other? They stood in little circles, Jews, Arabs, with ready smiles on their faces, all nodding, all smacking their lips and putting their hands over their hearts to vow they could not eat a morsel more, and beaming and exclaiming at the excellence of the feast.
So, on the eve of the first world war, the two villages above the Jordan made peace.
CHOICE
BOOK II
13
THROUGHOUT ALL the Galilee, and as far as Gedera in the South, there had spread the tale of the battle of Mishkan Yaacov, the tale of how the Chaimovitch boy, Gidon, alone on the ridge, had saved the evacuated village from total destruction. A young man like that was made for the Shomer, that was certain.
But Gidon was not certain he wanted the life of a shomer. One sundown he had a serious talk with his brother-in-law Menahem who, after the disaster, had been sent by the Shomer to take over the night rounds from Zev the Hotblood. During his free hours in the day, Menahem had come over to help the family cut a last field of forage. It was a brazen day, the heat not even lifting in the late afternoon, and when the rest of the family drove homeward, collapsed on the high-piled hay wagon, Gidon chose to go down and dip himself in the river.
Menahem walked along with him, not only because it was still unwise for Gidon to move about alone, but because the tim
e had come to talk out Gidon’s plans. Of his being welcome in the Shomer there would be no question, and besides the Shomer could send him out of the area, at least for a time, and this was desirable. So after their first life-reviving plunge in the stream, Menahem brought up the subject. “Have you given some thought, Gidon, to life as a shomer?”
Gidon stood still, letting the feeling of the water’s freshness seep all through his body. His brother-in-law’s sinews were like strips of dried meat; Menahem brushed off the clinging droplets of water, a thing done. Sometimes Gidon wondered whether Menahem savored anything in life.
Everyone, Gidon knew, expected him to join the Shomer. And how could he say to Menahem, himself a watchman, what he thought of such a life, spent riding the rounds on the lookout for thieves in the fields? The riding itself, if the mount was good, and in the freedom of the night, could doubtless bring times of wondrous satisfaction. But where was the accomplishment in catching some miserable thief loading sheaves onto a donkey? Or even in firing at some marauder sneaking toward a stable? In order to have the satisfaction of planting and working the land, Menahem himself gave the free hours of his afternoons to labor in the field. “I’ve thought about it,” Gidon said to Menahem. “The Shomer is important. But to me—I like to work in the stable, in the fields …”
With his dark penetrating glance, Menahem seemed to have read Gidon’s unspoken thought. “True, riding the rounds doesn’t give a man the satisfaction of direct productivity,” he said. “That is why the Shomer has built its own settlement at Gilboa, so that we can alternate our duties, and take part in productivity as well.”
“I know,” said Gidon. But this aspect too, the cooperativa, did not strongly attract him. “One has to be that kind of a person,” he said, “and I don’t think I am that kind of a person. I am not so much an idealist as Reuven and you others. I want to have my own place.”
“I am not so much an idealist myself,” Menahem shrugged, with that shadowy tight-lipped smile of his. “For me, the kvutsa is a practical way.” But there were also members of the Shomer who kept up their own farms, he reminded Gidon—like Shabbatai Zeira in Sejera. Gidon nodded; that was true—and yet …
Menahem was still studying him, measuring him, as though deciding how much more to say to him. Dipping under the water, Gidon let himself soak until the freshness penetrated all through him, and when he came up, he saw that Menahem too had dipped under and was aglitter, even smiling with freshness and well-being. “And then,” Menahem continued, “you know that riding watch is not all there is to it.”
Gidon knew. He knew there was something more, something mysterious, secret … he even felt he understood what it was, though he would not have been able to explain it. So he nodded seriously, sensing that now his brother-in-law would speak of these important things.
Menahem did, and he didn’t. First he repeated what everyone took for granted; yet by naming these matters, man to man in nakedness, there was a trustful acceptance of Gidon as one who had earned his initiation into manly responsibility. —The Yishuv was growing at last, Menahem reminded Gidon. The workers were becoming stronger even though they were still seriously split amongst themselves. One day, who knew how it would come about, the Jews would become a nation here. The whole world was on the brink of an explosion, perhaps war, perhaps revolution, and in this upheaval an opportunity might come and the Jews must be ready to seize it.
Here in the land the best men, the most determined men, must stand banded together, alert and disciplined. And wise. For this reason some of the most able chaverim had been sent to study in Constantinople. This was why a brilliant and educated man like Galil, who was a doctor of jurisprudence, had become a shomer, and why Galil and an educated woman like Nadina remained as simple members of the cooperativa—to be part of the movement. And Gidon must remember that a network of watchmen spread out and working all over the land was an ideal instrument for keeping in touch with all that was happening everywhere, so that when the time came it would be they who were prepared and could take control.
Gidon nodded automatically; naturally, this was something he had always understood. Only a second later, from the sheen in Menahem’s eyes, it came to him that this was the whole secret.
It was like what had happened when he was still in cheder in the old country, and the melamed had one day started talking about the hidden meaning of the words of the Bible, the code of gematria which used the number-value of each letter in a word to make other words. Every boy knew that there was a cabbala and that skinny half-starved talmudists went about hinting that the power of the universe was secretly known to them. But if they were masters of such power, why did they live such miserable lives?
Something of this, Gidon felt toward Menahem, who when in the mood could weave fantastic tales of his adventures all over the world, always with those glowing eyes of vision. How could a handful of watchmen one day seize control of the whole land? From whom? From the Turks?
“—and remember,” Menahem added, as they emerged now from the water, and pulled on their clothes, “it is not as though we are unopposed even in the Yishuv itself.” Others too were planning to be the leaders of a future Jewish nation, and the entire, all-important question of what kind of Jewish nation would some day be built in the land was perhaps to be decided now, in the beginning. Around Zichron, doubtless Gidon had heard, the sons of the Baron’s settlers had organized a secret society, meeting in a cave. The young brothers of Aaron Aaronson, the famous agronomist, together with Avshalom Feinberg the poet and a few more do-nothings, were setting up their own patrols, they galloped around on Arab steeds to protect the flower of Jewish maidenhood, it seemed—
“The Sons of Nimrod!” Gidon laughed. He had heard.
“It is not entirely so simple,” Menahem said. Their element, the sons of the well-to-do planters, imagined it was their natural right to become the leaders of the Yishuv. These offspring of the Jewish effendi, the Aaronsons, the Feinbergs, and their cousins and their friends, they would establish a capitalist, landowner class and make joint cause with the rich Arab effendi to keep the land in a state of medieval feudalism. This was really what was at stake.
But then Menahem’s whole cabbala, Gidon reflected, was simply the ancient quarrel between the old and the new elements in the Yishuv, between the grove owners and the chalutzim. Had he not heard this argument ever since he came to Palestine? From Reuven and Leah, unceasingly: What kind of land will we build here? Still, his brother-in-law spoke as though tomorrow or the next day a whole nation was ready to rise into being. Gidon had never thought of the problems in such an actual way. But it could be true—things did have a beginning, and the thinkers and planners who caught hold at the beginning could guide the way that things would be. Now he was ready to take his place in life, he must perhaps choose and become part of a movement, as Menahem said, to create one kind of land or another. There was more, there was so much more to a man’s life than raising his crops.
“I’ll tell you, Menahem, I am not such a thinker as you and Reuven and Galil—I don’t so much like to read and discuss. I know, if it comes to matters like what kind of country this will be, I know I am with you. But for myself—” he stood still, and gazed beyond Menahem over the fields. Was he the sort of fellow to be participating in secret, far-reaching plans and therefore in the responsibility of guiding the fate of a whole people? “For myself, maybe I will just stay here.” Already Abba was consulting with him about the plantings, the stable, as though to say one day the meshek would be his. “I feel the best for me,” Gidon repeated, as he and Menahem walked soberly, their bodies cool and comfortable now, over the stubble, “the best is to stay a farmer.”
—Yes, perhaps, Menahem agreed, that was the best. Such young men, solidly grown to the soil, were the ideal. Only just now for a time it was not quite safe for Gidon to remain here; the Mukhtar of Dja’adi had himself hinted at it. There had been too much talk of Gidon’s remaining behind alone. Even though the Zb
eh had made off with the entire herd, and had their blood revenge, they could still be murderous. Moving freely about, Gidon could be a tempting target. In the opinion of the Shomer, he should go elsewhere for a time. During the winter months, at least.
Leah too had been prodding him. The village was moribund, especially since the troubles. And in Jaffa, in Rehovot, he might meet a girl.
—He could learn something of orange growing, Menahem suggested, for here too, with irrigation, as Reuven insisted, there might be crops of gold.
—Perhaps, Gidon laughed, but he couldn’t really see himself as a wealthy pardessan! But he had indeed been thinking he might go off to learn something, perhaps to learn about animal diseases as Reuven had suggested. He had been thinking of working for a time for a veterinary.
As Gidon and Menahem reached the farmyard, with a feeling of richer understanding between them, a figure appeared, riding on a horse Gidon recognized from a distance. It was a tired mare that Reuven’s kvutsa had used for years to haul the water-barrel wagon; now that a pump had been installed, it was everybody’s riding horse. But the rider was neither Reuven nor any of their chevreh. Wearing breeches, boots, and a Russian cap, he sat erect as if on the finest mount. Though Gidon saw him for the first time, he was sure who this must be, and indeed Menahem called at once, “It’s Trumpeldor.”
Who did not know of Trumpeldor! The soldier-hero who had once and for all shown the Russians what Jews were made of, demanding to go back and fight even after he had lost his arm in battle, at Port Arthur. The first Jew to be made an officer in the Russian army. And then, despite the invitation of the Czar himself to remain in the army and rise higher, he had refused, so as to come as a chalutz to Eretz Yisroel. One heard of Josef Trumpeldor laboring at Migdal, attending Zionist congresses, appearing at workers’ assemblies to call for labor unity—and lately he had been staying and working at Reuven’s kvutsa, HaKeren.