The Settlers

by Meyer Levin

  “He’s only done his searches by himself,” Gidon said. “He always calls himself an amateur.”

  “But I too am only self-taught,” Aviva’s father said, with his resigned sigh.

  “Peretz, you know more than all their professors,” his wife declared.

  Peretz Yerushalmi shrugged. “The books anyone can read, and the material is all around us.

  Suddenly Gidon was thinking of Herscheleh, the reader. A bitterness came over him, and in spite of the nearness of Aviva, he wanted to leave, to rush out anywhere. They were trying to ease him, to talk—the mother talked of why they lived here in the Old City; as they were not religious, they had at first been a great shock to their neighbors; she even told a few half-humorous incidents of Hasidim spitting at them. But to her husband, only the Old City was Jerusalem. Peretz would not think of living outside the walls, and she too had come to feel that way; it was not really unpleasant once you got within your own courtyard, though the smells—

  Aviva suggested a walk. Taking his hand as they went out into the lane, she kept silently along with him. A weeping was welling up from within, but Gidon held it back.

  “Do you know what,” he heard her say, “have you ever been up on the walls?” Still holding his hand, she led him alongside the wall and there they came to stairs rising up to the very top. “Look,” she said—on each stone step the moonlight lay. Aviva went up first. “We played here when I was a little girl,” she said, her hand still reaching back in his.

  Above, the top of the wall was wide enough sometimes for both, sometimes for one. The parapet, with archer’s slits, was low enough so that they could see over it, everywhere around. In the village of Sylwan a few lamps showed, and above it, the regularly spaced lanterns of an encampment; looking downward, they saw a steep rocky ravine, the bluish light veiling the bottom as though it were not the solid earth down there, but an opening into unknown depths.

  “The vale of Hinom?” he asked, though he knew—the valley into the nether world. Across, on the opposite slope, were the tombstones of the Mount of Olives, the low, irregular markers like an ordinary field of rocks. Would Herschel have wanted to lie there, even if he was supposedly godless, rather than one day be reburied, as they had promised at the field hospital, in some military cemetery?

  “You’re thinking of your chaver,” she said softly.

  Gidon turned slowly with his back to Hinom and the mount of graves. They had still not let go of each other’s hands. For a time they looked into each other’s faces. The cast of the moonlight on her cheeks, over her mouth, made her seem part of the eternal stone, and the unfathomable words from Herschel’s delirium echoed to him. For a moment he seemed to grasp it all, to understand, from her hand still in his, from her eyes seeing within him. This time Gidon let the tears brim over.

  She moved and was close against his side.

  Then Gidon told her he was unclean. He told her how, long ago, even before the war, he had lain watching the Zbeh come closer and had slain two of them. Aviva seized his head between her hands, “Gidon! It is not a retribution! You hear me! You must never imagine it is a retribution! That is forbidden.” Her voice was no longer a girl’s, but like the voice of someone—a teacher, a mother, a woman—who has a right to tell you such things. “Gidon, it is forbidden!”

  He looked downward on the inner side of the wall, and, partly because of his remaining teariness, the inner city that lay there was diffused, softened, so that it was like the surface of her cheeks, her face, glowing with life within. At the wonder and beauty of it, Gidon drew in a breath of awe, and a soft pressure from her fingers told him that she too felt this eternity.

  Nearest them lay the small domed stone roofs of the houses of the Jewish quarter, the domes rolling from each other like a rippled sea, and beyond rose the larger domes of the mosques that stood over the Temple site, both the gold and the silver ones indistinguishable in color, luminous in the cast of the moon, and beyond and inward within the continuous encircling wall the entire Old City was a unity of low, small repeating roof domes, and rising from amidst them, so many spires and minarets, while between in the creases of the lanes a few lantern lights glimmered.

  Gidon wondered again, had Herschel ever, perhaps before the war, seen it from here—this beautiful sight, of a forever that had been made by man? But now, when he thought of Herschel, it was without such bitter grief, now it was a calmed sorrow.

  It seemed to Gidon that he for the first time understood them all, the chaluka Jews, living on alms, then the early Zionists, Aviva’s father with his battle for Hebrew and his love for this place, his own father, and he understood why he himself was here. And not only their own generations, but long before. These were Turkish-built walls; David’s walls had been perhaps not exactly here beneath them where they stood, but, as Aviva’s father said, on the hill just behind, the hill of Zion—yet Gidon knew they stood on David’s walls, and the enclosed city that lay below them in a magic silence was David’s city; the remnant called David’s tower, though a mosque, was a tower of David’s citadel; the vast luminous Moslem dome was a dome of the Temple, and the spires and minarets that arose so thickly from the Christian and Moslem quarters were no intrusions—they were included in the Jewish eternity of this place, as was the death of all the defenders who had fallen here under the Roman onslaught, and before, under Nebuchadnezzar’s onslaught, as was the death only today of his chaver Herscheleh. Therefore he felt a more peaceful sorrow in this moment.

  While he stood there with Aviva, another couple passed, their arms around each other’s waist as they kept close together on the ledge. As the pair walked slowly, half-entranced, beyond them, there was a fleeting expression on Aviva’s face, not a smile but an acquiescence, even touched with a kind of “forgive me” because of Herschel. This then was a place where lovers came. And Gidon let his eyes acknowledge it all to her; surely Herschel would have been glad of it so. Suddenly their lips came together in love, in sorrow and tenderness, in apology and yet in an outcry; Oh, God, what can you want of us, what can you expect of us when such utter beauty lies upon the earth, when such craving grows in our hearts, frightened of our own calling to each other?

  Then they walked on along the top of the wall, sometimes passing motionless couples embraced in the casements, their own hands still sealed together, for it was not yet the night to put their arms tightly around each other. But all along their sides their limbs brushed and sometimes clung.

  Where the life in the barracks, before, among the little nucleus of old comrades who had been together since Gallipoli had been a refuge to him, in Alexandria, in England, even in the Mellallah, it had now suddenly become unendurable. Perhaps it had been Herscheleh who had held that life together. But now every coarse jest grated on him; an entire seraglio left behind by the Turks had been discovered in Salt, but the tales of it only disgusted him. In another week, the war with the Turks all at once ended. Now the urge to get out, to go home, to start his life with Aviva, was a continuous torture. But even the speculations, rumors, discussions of demobilization were a torment, for no one really knew the slightest thing for certain.

  They were comfortable in abandoned houses, the food was better, things were far better now for the sick—their own medic had gone to Jerusalem, made a great row at headquarters, and the sick were now in hospital. Much good it did the dead.

  Gidon’s head was crowded with images of how the real part would begin with Aviva. The first time he must make beautiful. She was ready to come to him, and perhaps they should even simply get married at once and not wait until he was out of the service.

  The battalion was moved back to Sarafend. Who knew but what they might still be shipped off to fight in Europe?

  She was going down to help Leah, Aviva wrote; the owner of Leah’s last farming place had returned, and Leah was starting a new girls’ farm on the other side of Tel Aviv, on the sands toward the Yarkon River.

  In the midst of it all, the whole war ended
. In Europe, everywhere. There was peace in the world.

  For Sabbath Gidon got a pass and found Leah’s new meshek, a half hour’s walk across the sands; what a place for a group of girls! He was suddenly almost angry at his sister, but Leah laughed—he needn’t fear, they were infested with “protectors.” If he delayed, one of them would steal Aviva away.

  Aviva laughed softly.

  Gidon had a new plan to talk to her about, a plan that appealed to him more than Nahum’s grandiose ideas. Araleh and Saraleh were back, taking care of the Zuckerman hotel in Tel Aviv. Tonight there was a meeting with Araleh about a settlement for veterans. He had made a complete plan for a cooperative such as Herscheleh had used to talk about. Araleh himself wanted to go back to the soil, he said; he was not made to be a hotelkeeper—besides, as a construction expert he would be useful in building the settlement. Saraleh too was eager. Tuvia had put down his name, and even Red Nathan, and a dozen more of the best.

  First, Saraleh had Gidon and Aviva eat, not in the hotel’s dining room, but with her and Araleh and the children; she had insisted on having her own quarters behind the hotel, a real home. And from the first moment, as Gidon came in with Aviva, she beamed her approval. Now Gidon knew he had of course never been in love with Saraleh the way he had thought in Alexandria. A poor lonely lout’s hunger. How lucky it was he had never said anything, always restrained himself because of his friendship for Araleh, though women know these things. At least now he had no need to feel ashamed. They drank toasts, a l’chayim to peace, a l’chayim to Gidon and Aviva, another to Araleh and Saraleh, to the new cooperative, to the homeland!

  Later others came and the whole meeting went off like a dream of amity: a few good arguments, but not a single quarrel, everyone intent on showing how well they would be able to get along together. All would be modern, with the latest agricultural machinery from America, to be used by each member in rotation. They would have big fields in common, but vegetable gardens and poultry for each family individually. They would buy seed and materials together and sell produce together. All was so peaceful that Araleh even remarked, “Chevreh, it is all too good—next meeting, let’s have some bitter disputes!”

  But one problem did arise. Wives.

  For practical reasons, it was suggested only married couples—“or even not so married,” someone jested—could become part of the group.

  “What is this, the old Baron’s kind of settlement?” Tuvia growled.

  But how would a man manage his share without a wife?

  —With someone else’s wife!

  —No, chevreh, seriously—

  And, seriously, even Tuvia agreed it would be a need. “A need in more ways than one. Seriously.”

  —Well, then—

  “Don’t worry, the way it’s going with the British, before we can get out of the army to start the settlement, we’ll all have wives, even grandchildren.”

  After the meeting had broken up, and one after another had said his Shalom and gone off—Tuvia the last, lingering as though he expected Gidon to come along with him—Gidon remarked, “I’m staying over. I’m sleeping here in the hotel.”

  Aviva had sat with him through the meeting, and then gone off a bit with Saraleh; now she returned and took Gidon’s hand, and they went up to their room. Already in the afternoon he had passed by and arranged it all with Araleh, and taken the key.

  As in all the rooms, there were six cots.

  “Never mind!” he said. “It’s for us alone.”

  “You paid for them all?”

  “It’s a wedding present from Saraleh and Araleh.” They fell upon each other.

  Only a few weeks later they arranged an actual wedding, with the canopy and all. Word had spread that married men would be the first to be demobilized, and besides, why wait? The wedding was to be in the open, in the Yerushalmi courtyard, with the rabbi of the Jewish battalions performing the ceremony, so that even the pious neighbors could scarcely find fault.

  The day before the event, already on leave in Jerusalem, Gidon encountered Fawzi and told him the news and invited him—how could he not have thought of it before!

  —A toast! Fawzi cried, and they sat down at the Alhambra. Fawzi ordered whiskies, he had learned from the English what to drink. Sparkling with joy as though it were for his own self, he told tales of marital prowess, told the joke about the village simpleton who found himself unable to perform with his bride and exclaimed in puzzlement, “But just a moment ago I wanted to make sure, so I went with a sheep, five times!”

  Jestingly, Fawzi offered to take Gidon to a very good place where he could learn a few tricks for the wedding night—was he sure he knew what to do? A wonderful place, only English officers went there. French girls, the best. And Jewish girls were very good! His eyes sparkled as those of a man who knows whereof he speaks.

  —Arab girls too, Gidon said, and they jabbed each other laughing, while for an instant the memory came to Gidon of the little Sudanese prostitute in Cairo.

  —And in England, Fawzi demanded, English girls?

  —In England—Gidon didn’t know why he was about to say it, but it was as though it brought Herscheleh here with them—in England, the little factory girls who had husbands away at the front, oh, they were wonderful.

  Fawzi licked his lips. All their camaraderie had returned. Soon they would go pig-sticking in the Huleh with his British colonel, Fawzi cried, making the gesture of sticking the pig, and laughing intimately, between themselves, as he repeated the gesture in obscenity. Oh, the English! The colonel was even going to take him to England to become very well educated, and when he returned here, he would be an important man. Oh, the English, they were great friends for the Arabs!

  —For the Jews, he wasn’t so sure, Gidon said.

  “Oh, the Jews don’t need so much help! You are clever! You are all rich!” Fawzi said. And with a sly grin, he drew from his pocket a sheaf of typed pages, bluish hectographed copies, like a pamphlet of some sort, and handed it to Gidon, watching as Gidon read.

  It was in English, but with some odd words even in the title, so that at first Gidon could hardly understand. “Protocols.” What were “protocols”? He glanced further. The secret meeting of the Elders of Zion. What did that mean—Elders of Zion? Zionists or what? A whole list of names followed, the Chief Rabbi, Rothschilds, Herzl—and the meeting took place in the cemetery in Prague—what was this?

  Gidon looked up at Fawzi, who had a delighted expression, as when someone catches you out. “But what is this, where did you get it?”

  “How you are going to rule the world! The Jews!” Fawzi slapped him on the knee. Hesitatingly, Gidon joined in his laughter.

  The colonel had given these papers to Fawzi. The colonel had brought the booklet from Russia where the English had sent him with arms to help the Russians that were fighting the Bolsheviki. These papers were translated from a secret Russian book.

  In each country we shall have all the gold. With the gold in our hands, the rulers will have to do as we say—

  We shall take all the women as we choose—

  “But it’s crazy,” Gidon said.

  Fawzi chuckled. “That’s what I say to them. Some Jews work hard, they are poor like us.” He leaned in, as when sharing talk about women. “My cousin Haj Amin says it is all true. He is highly educated, in Cairo, in the University, in the Al Haram. He is a Huseini from Jerusalem. Oh, very rich. Already he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, he is already a Haj.” Then Fawzi leaned forward as though to share the best part. “He says the Jews want to drive us out from the land!”

  But why should such a thing be said? Where was there any sign of it? Were they not living peacefully side by side in Dja’adi and Mishkan Yaacov? had anyone been driven from his land?

  Then, as though here too a secret plan had been caught out, like the secret plan of certain Jews—not Gidon’s kind!—to rule the world, Fawzi spoke of the Declaration. Did it not say Jews should have this land?

&nbs
p; Gidon felt safer. “But the Declaration is for Arabs too. It says we should have a homeland, yes, but nothing should be taken from anybody’s rights, that lives here.”

  Ah?

  And Fawzi shrugged. It was all politics, he laughed, and talked of women. Did Gidon want to know a way to make certain whether a bride was a virgin? Gidon flushed. In such matters, Fawzi said, he himself would be old-fashioned. When he married, if the girl was not a virgin, he would send her back at once to her father and demand back the bride-money. Then perhaps her brothers would kill her.

  They laughed together and drank up.

  Fawzi came to the wedding and was not the only Arab. Peretz Yerushalmi too had invited Arab friends, several antiquarians of the Old City, and a teacher of Arabic from his school, and everyone kept seeing to it that they were not left standing to a side. When the festivities were at their height, Fawzi and Gidon and Schmulik and other lads formed a line and, as in the old days, Fawzi led them out in a debka.

  Never had Gidon thought of himself as popular. The Irishman had come, and half the battalion it seemed, filling the courtyard and the little street; the entire family had come from Mishkan Yaacov, Mameh overburdened with packages and pots filled with good things to eat, and Leah had brought her whole kvutsa of girls up from Tel Aviv, Aviva’s chaveroth. Of all the weddings, Shula declared, this was the most joyous.