by Noah Beck
Daniel thought about how he would never again see, embrace, or kiss his wife, Sivan, just as he had been about to retire from the submarine force with still decades of time for her. The captain thought about his frail, 91-year old grandfather whom he never had the chance to visit one last time. His tales of rugged self-reliance and incredible survival had always inspired him, and now his life-story was brought to a cruel and absurd end: he miraculously survived the first holocaust against the Jews only to be killed in the second one. Daniel thought about his older children, Hila and Amir, and how he never got to say goodbye to either of them.
He took out of his pocket the folded up drawing that Esty had let him keep during their ephemeral shore visit. The captain unfolded the piece of paper and looked at it: a red crayon line that was mostly straight with the outlines of two starfish nearby. As the paper shook in his hands, he saw some teardrops fall onto the red crayon, smudging the color a little. He would never see her again – not with her drawings of sticks and stars, nor with his captain’s insignia on her shirt asking Mommy for more ice cream; not with a replacement for her lost starfish, nor with a boat that he would teach her to captain in the bathtub. All of that was gone forever, and this broke his heart the most.
From those lost souls, Daniel’s shaking, weeping mind moved to his parents, his siblings, his in-laws, his friends, his neighbors. All gone. It was too much for him to conceive.
Bao thought first about his longhaired Yoni. No trip with him to Vietnam. No delighting him with the news that he finally came out to the crew about being gay, and that they received it well. No cure for cancer to benefit the world and spite the UK universities that boycotted him. No more laughs and long debates. Just an eerie silence in some post-Armageddon void. And then he thought about his family. What an absurd and ineffably cruel end to their incredible voyage: from refugees fleeing Vietnam to building a new life in Israel and raising a generation of well-adjusted Vietnamese Israelis, only for everyone but Bao to end up incinerated in an instant.
Boutrous imagined the officer promotion ceremony that his parents would never get to attend several years from now – a ceremony that now would never happen. He thought about how he would now never be able to study law at the University of Haifa and how his parents will never see him get his diploma. He remembered his younger sister and brother, and his friends and neighbors in their Galilee village. He thought about how he’ll never again be able to visit Jerusalem and pray in its ancient churches, and how everything that had ever mattered to him personally, spiritually, and socially had vanished with the horrified voice of Gabriel Cohen.
Michael recalled his parents, and their tales of persecution and discrimination in the Soviet Union, and the hardships and sacrifices they had accepted so that he could have a better life in Israel. He imagined his father rising from the dead to curse the world for not having seen the obvious, or – even worse – for having seen it but done too little to stop it. He considered the drought-resistant crops that his father was developing and how the world would never see them or the other inventions that were being developed in his university lab. He realized that he would never again hear the violin music that his mother used to play at home. He thought about his friends and all of the jokes and stories they wouldn’t share over a shakshuka brunch. He realized that there would be no Israeli high-tech ventures for him and Eitan to join or launch together after their submarine service. There would be no more Israeli music, literature, or cinema, or any other form of Israeli culture. There would be nothing – just a void that was now their reality.
Jacob remembered his parents and how happy their lives had been. He thought about how his father had saved so many people at home and on humanitarian missions in Haiti, Japan, Chile, Congo, and countless other countries, and how there was no one to save him now. He remembered Clarice and realized that he would never move into her tiny studio or listen to her mellifluous voice while playing with the long tendrils of her hair. She was gone too. He thought about how he would never travel with her to Brooklyn and how even his dream of trying to live there for a while suddenly seemed utterly empty and inane. When he wanted to tell someone whether Brooklyn was just as he had dreamed or exactly the opposite, whom could he call? Did he really want to live as a guest in some other country after his own state was just razed? What joy could he possibly hope to find after such an overwhelming and devastating loss of everything that he had ever loved or cared about? He thought about the one person he loved – besides Zvi – who was probably still alive: his brother, the traveling hippie. Where was he when the news that his entire country and family, except his brother under the sea, had all been vaporized? Or was he so immersed in backpacker bliss and disconnected from world events that he didn’t even know?
Eitan thought about his parents and older siblings. What were they thinking when they realized that the Ayatollahs who had ruined their lives in Tehran had – with the long arm of their nuclear missiles – come back to destroy them and their new country? But as he thought about them, his chilling nightmare crept back into his mind as well. He saw the decapitated head of his cousin Isaac on the altar, looking at him plaintively.
“Please, Eitan. The father of our faith sacrificed only a ram. As a Jew, you must choose the ram.”
Eitan’s religious beliefs made him think that maybe God Himself had implanted the terribly prophetic vision in his mind, to ensure that the navigator’s moral compass would not be misaligned by the horrific news that Gabriel Cohen would deliver soon thereafter. While suicide is proscribed by Jewish law, Eitan struggled with the idea that – as the lesser of evils – maybe the submariners were 35 rams that should be sacrificed instead of millions of innocent Iranians.
Yisrael thought about Netta, and how stupid he felt about his jealousy-filled farewell. He realized that he would never be able to tell her how much he really loves her, and how much he now realizes the extent of her love for him. He remembered his parents, his younger sister, and his friends. He thought about his beloved grandfather who was at least spared this catastrophe. “One Holocaust was enough,” he said to himself. He thought about how he never had the chance to say goodbye to him, before he left this world, and how even the rest of his diary to be transcribed by Netta was now destroyed. As empty as his life had sometimes felt without children, how much more empty did it feel now? What was the point of anything now? He had no love, no country, and no purpose. Only the darkest form of nihilism lingered in the recesses of his mind.
The crew’s sullen mourning was suddenly disturbed by an outburst. “Th…There’s a…a terr…a…terrorist on board!” Zvi shouted out, with a wild look in his eyes, as he pointed at Boutrous.
Everyone’s morose reflections were abruptly displaced by Zvi’s strange and hysterical shouting. “She…She’s an Arab. We…we have to stop her bb…bef-before she kk-kills us!” he shouted urgently as he rushed towards Boutrous to tackle him.
Boutrous, who was still somewhat lost in his own grieving thoughts, couldn’t make sense of Zvi’s shouting, but saw that he was charging at him violently. Boutrous tried to dodge Zvi’s lunging body but was pinned up against the submarine wall. Boutrous defended himself as Zvi tried to swing at him, and the two were soon punching each other in whatever way they could.
The unexpected behavior from Jacob’s best friend, and the ensuing brawl between Zvi and Boutrous, pulled Jacob out of his sorrowful thoughts, as he rushed over before even Daniel could react.
“Zvi! What are you doing?! Stop that!” he yelled, as he ran up to the two and tried to break them apart. “Stop that, Zvi! Boutrous is our friend! You’re acting crazy!” Absorbing some blows from each sailor in the process, Jacob finally pried Zvi off of Boutrous and tackled him to the ground.
“Wh…Wh…What are you d-d-do…doing? She…She’s an Arab…A tt-terrorist,” Zvi shouted, trying to get back up, as Jacob struggled to restrain him. The two gradually stood up onto their knees, but Jacob held onto Zvi so that he couldn’t move away or
get up onto his feet. Daniel approached with his gun ready.
Jacob looked up at the captain. “Sir, please let me handle this. I know how to calm him down.”
“W-W-We…We have to stop her…Or…or she’ll k-k-kill us all.”
“No, Zvi, no. You’re losing it. That’s a man, not a woman. And he’s not a terrorist. He’s a good man. He’s our friend.” Jacob held Zvi’s arms tightly and looked deep into his eyes, as the other submariners watched the scene, bewildered by it all.
“B…B-But I saw a b-b-bomb on her. Sh…Sh…She ha-has a b-b-bomb.”
“No, Zvi, no!” Jacob shouted. “It’s Boutrous. He’s our friend.”
“Are…Are you sure she…she’s not a t-t-terrorist?”
“Zvi, look at me. Where are we right now?”
“We’re…We’re in…in Hai…Haifa, at M-M-Maxim’s restr…restaurant.”
“No, Zvi! No. We’re not in Haifa. Look. Look around you, Zvi. We’re in the Dolphin submarine. Under the sea. We’re sailing towards the Strait of Hormuz. Look at that man,” he said, pointing at Daniel. “Who is that man?” Jacob asked his best friend. “Do you know that man?”
Zvi, still on his knees, had an anguished look as he tried to recall the familiar face.
Daniel moved a little closer and crouched down to Zvi’s level, speaking to him gently. “Zvi, do you know who I am?”
As reality gradually crawled back into Zvi’s mind, he began to cry. “Y…You’re the…the cc-captain…”
“That’s right, Zvi. I’m the captain. And who is that?” he asked, pointing to Boutrous, who was straightening himself out from the brief and bizarre fracas.
“Th…Th-That’s…B-B-Boutrous,” he replied.
“That’s right. That’s Boutrous. Come, let’s stand up,” Daniel said, helping Zvi to his feet. “You know, you just hurt him.”
“I…I dd…did?” he asked, bursting into tears.
“Yes,” Jacob explained. “You just attacked him, even though he did nothing to you. He’s our brother and our friend. A good sailor on our crew.”
Zvi turned toward Boutrous and approached him slowly, as the rest of the crew watched. “I…I…I’m sss…so sorry, B…B…Boutrous,” Zvi said between tears and with great difficulty speaking. “I…I’m sss…so s-sorry I att…attacked you…”
“It’s OK, Zvi,” Boutrous replied softly.
“I’m…I’m very ccc…confused now…Aaff…After everything we…we heard…I thought…I thought I was somewhere else...P…Please f-forgive me.”
“It’s OK, Zvi…We’re all confused right now,” he replied, as his eyes watered up. “I still can’t believe…I can’t even imagine it all…I have no words….”
Chapter 38: The Last Israelis
With the dramatic episode of Zvi’s wild outburst fully contained and concluded, the crewmembers drifted back into their dark thoughts. Each man returned to the same pattern of mourning, from the submariner’s closest loved ones, to more distant relations and friends, to places and pleasures that will never again exist in the land each crewmember once called home. The waves of loss reverberated in the minds of the 35 silent sailors, as they somberly and desperately tried to grasp the meaning of the total annihilation that had taken place about 39 hours earlier and 2,200 kilometers away.
Samir thought about his three young children and how all that was now left of them was the MP3 recording of Shadi’s singing voice. He thought about the election campaign that his wife would never undertake. She would never be the first Druze woman to be elected to the Knesset because there was no more Knesset. And she wouldn’t even be a doctor any more – only a memory to him. He thought about how the country that he, his father, and his grandfather had so patriotically defended no longer existed, and how the 400,000 Druze in nearby Lebanon, and the 700,000 in neighboring Syria would undoubtedly suffer from the radioactive debris slowly descending on them. And how in a single day the Druze had effectively lost the best economic and political conditions they had ever enjoyed in the Middle East. Samir was engulfed by sorrow and rage.
The dismal silence was punctuated by occasional navigational readings or captain’s orders, spoken robotically with numb precision. The crew continued in its morbid and meditative quiet for about ten minutes, until a burst of shrill noise abruptly rang through the submarine deck as Samir maniacally lunged at Yisrael, screaming at him, with his hands flying to his throat as he tried to choke him. “Why did you stop us, you asshole?! Why?! Why?!” Yisrael struggled to remove Samir’s hands from his throat. “Why?! Tell me! Why?! We have a submarine, God damn it!”
Daniel rushed over and drew his pistol, pointing it at Samir.
“Let him go, Samir!” his voice roared with all of the power underlying his command. “If you think any of this is Yisrael’s fault then you’ve completely lost your mind.”
“Yisrael stopped us,” he began. “And – ”
“There was nothing we could have done. Even had we attacked when we first learned of the news about nineteen hours ago, the Iranian nukes had already hit their targets by then. Let him go, I said!” Samir’s grip loosened a little.
“We could have done something,” Samir replied, reluctantly letting go of Yisrael. “We should have launched our missiles a few days before that.”
“No, Samir. That was not an option,” Daniel said, putting away his pistol. “We are a second-strike capability. Not a first.”
“We should have hit them first, God damn it!” He yelled, with all of his sorrow and fury pouring out. “To hell with the rules!” He seemed almost possessed with rage.
“Get a hold of yourself, Samir!” Daniel yelled at him again with the thundering authority and firmness of his commanding rank. “Control yourself or you’ll get us all killed!”
“What difference does it make now?”
“Not much. But we still have some very important work to do.”
“Like what? Mourning the dead?”
“Exercising the last bit of sovereignty left to the State of Israel, right here on this submarine. And if the collective will is to strike, then that must be done too. And then we can all die.”
Samir’s back slid down the wall until he reached the floor, where he buried his head between his knees and began sobbing. Daniel turned to Yisrael. “As for you, Yisrael, you wanted better military intelligence and more timely facts from the ground, before deciding. Well, now you have them.”
The captain turned on the intercom system and addressed the entire crew: “Crewmembers of the Dolphin, it’s time for us to make a final decision. You heard the latest report from the ground. We are the last Israelis. The last Israelis who are actually safe enough to make rational decisions. The last Israelis whom fate has chosen to write the final sentences of the final chapter of the State of Israel. Everyone else is either dead, or traumatized and on their way to dying soon. So let the last Israelis be a democratic people until their last breaths. The world apparently had the luxury of choosing to ignore the threat that brought us here. But we don’t have the luxury of ignoring the choice before us. We didn’t have the moral luck to avoid the question, so – to the five crewmembers who were undecided on the last vote, and to any who might be feeling undecided now – you don’t have the luxury of abstaining this time. This vote is not complete without you, so you must find your moral truth and choose. That is the burden of being alive with the freedom and power to act. It is a responsibility of the gravest kind, but you are not deciding alone. You are deciding with and on behalf of the Israeli society that was just annihilated. You’ve had many hours to consider the various arguments for and against attacking Iran with our nuclear missiles. You also heard the latest update from Gabriel Cohen, who provided additional details about what exactly happened to our state. So now, you can make a more informed decision. You must each decide for yourselves so that our collective will can be finalized and we can act accordingly. Please take a moment to write your vote down and bring it to me in the next five minutes.”
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br /> One by one, each submariner brought his ballot to Daniel. The ballots in favor of an attack totaled 22 and included Boutrous, Michael, Jacob, Zvi, Samir, and Bao. Those against an attack totaled 12 and included Eitan, Ambesah and Yisrael. As Daniel computed the vote tallies, he realized that without his own vote in favor of an attack, the result would be about 63% in favor and the measure would fail. With his vote for an attack, the outcome would be about 66% in favor and the resolution would pass the two-thirds majority that was required under the arrangement that he and Yisrael had agreed upon. Daniel reflected for a moment on how his vote would ultimately be the one to decide the outcome.
The captain added his ballot to the votes in favor of an attack. To avoid any controversy, Daniel brought the ballots to Yisrael and asked him to confirm the results. The deputy captain counted them sullenly and then just nodded his head to confirm that the tally was correct.
Daniel spoke on the intercom again: “Members of the Dolphin crew, the vote was 23 in favor and 12 against, so we now have a collective and democratic decision to attack Iran. The question of what we should do is behind us. We have a duty to history now. Let it not be said that the Jews were again snuffed out without a fight. Let the record show that our star shone brightly for three millennia and burned brilliantly for the 66 years when we were again masters of our own fate, with a state of our own, before going out in one last glorious blaze.”
Yisrael looked at the captain and the other crewmembers around him, desperately searching for something that he could say to stop the process that was now officially set in motion. He had tried every democratic procedure he could think of. After insisting on a two-thirds majority and persuading Daniel to accept this higher level of consensus, he had also promised not to raise any more objections. But what was a broken promise compared to the millions of innocents they were about to kill?