Chariots on the Highway

by Limor Moyal

  “I hope you understand that releasing information about an injured soldier to an unrelated person is far beyond prohibited, but I’m willing to break the rules given your relationship with the hospital. Now, I'll give you an update about your partner, but in order to let you see him, I'm going to have to check with my superiors,” the doctor said with worry.

  “Speak!” Dan ordered.

  “Sergeant Tomer Freeman got here today at 04:00 in a rescue helicopter, after a ‘clearing and evacuating’ OP from south Lebanon. He arrived with multiple severe injuries.

  He has three entry and two exit bullet wounds, in the shoulder, thigh and stomach. One bullet is located near his spleen and is causing internal bleeding.

  Two relatively deep stabs in the chest, two shrapnel wounds, one in the ribs and one in the thigh, and more shrapnel wounds in other areas.

  Further, he has multiple bruises and abrasions around his legs and face. His status as of now is severe but stable. He’s in surgery to remove the bullet and shrapnel, and to stop the internal bleeding.

  He lost a lot of blood, we gave him a few units, and he’ll go through a few more procedures in the next few hours related to torn blood vessels, repairing his femur, and another procedure on the shoulder muscle that was torn by a bullet. I know it sounds like a lot, and it’s really not easy, but he hasn’t suffered any head or spinal injuries, which means that if he survives these next few hours, procedures and the trauma his body has suffered, he’ll be good as new, maybe with a little limp, but functioning.”

  “Is there a risk of losing him?” Dan croaked, barely able to get the words out.

  “It’s hard to measure it with percentages, if there aren’t any surprises, there’s no imminent danger to his life. All in all, we’ve stabilized him and the bleeding is under control.

  The injuries themselves aren’t life-threatening, what can go wrong is if the severity of the injuries put too much stress on his body or if there are any surprises or sudden bleeding in the OR. There’s always a risk of infection, I'm sure you know all that given that you familiar with the field."

  “I'm asking you to give me access to see him, talk to whoever’s necessary, I want to see him as soon as he comes out of the OR,” said Dan in a slightly calmer tone.

  “That won’t happen in the next few hours, Mr. Green. He has a series of surgeries and I don’t know when we’ll wake him up, but I promise you I'll take care of it with my superiors. On a personal note, you should make sure to be registered as each other’s partners so situations like these don’t happen again.” Dr. Zuckerman spoke with sincerity and genuine care, and Dan appreciated the humanity and understanding he showed. He took a big breath, the first one in the last hour.

  He sat in the waiting room in front of the ICU and looked at the passers-by, the families sitting around him. Listening and collecting sentences, hearing the grief and pain of close family members. Seeing tears of pain and tears of sadness. It was a melting pot of emotional extremes, that’s what the place was about.

  Robby arrived with a cup of coffee and hugged Dan. He was so happy to see a familiar face and a hot cup of coffee that it almost made him cry.

  Dan updated him about Tom’s condition and Robby’s eyes gave away his sorrow.

  “It’s no wonder he’s in that kind of condition, and it’s a miracle he’s even survived. I just talked to my contact about the events that took place last night on the battlefield, and apparently they walked into an ambush. The fuckers knew they were coming, and intelligence also suspected it, but one of the higher-ups decided that this elimination was important and sent them into the lion’s den. Tom was the one to save the team, or at least what was left of it. He was outside the village when the shit hit the fan, and, instead of waiting for the tanks, he and the sniper ran inside.

  He took out the target and a few dozen other armed men and made it through until the artillery arrived and started the evacuation. He’s going to get a commendation when he wakes up. Your soldier is a fucking hero, Dan,” said Robby with a smile as Dan choked back tears of pride and excitement.

  “Out of a team of fifteen, there are six dead, two severely injured, Tom’s one of them, and the rest are in moderate to mild condition. The sniper who was with him is mildly injured and he was the one who reported about what happened in the field,” summarized Robby, and his face became serious with pain, Dan's heart broke as he heard the numbers. Casualties were always a painful subjects to every Israeli, no matter what political views he held, or how cynical he usually was.

  “How about his commanding officer, Shai?” asked Dan.

  “Mildly injured, he’s in an investigation regarding the event, I'm sure he’ll get here soon enough to see his wounded soldiers. He took shrapnel in his arm, nothing serious.”

  Robby stayed with Dan for about an hour, trying to convince him to eat a sandwich and having no success. He finally left, promising to come by again later.

  Dan kept sitting in the waiting room and, every twenty minutes, he walked over toward the reception desk to see if there was any news from the OR. The new nurse manning the station already knew who he was and when he’d approach her she would shake her head with a smile, to tell him there was still no news. This ritual between them kept on going, even though they both knew that if there was any news, Dan would have been the first to know, but he was stressed, he was tired of waiting and worrying, and she understood.

  He was in the midst of forcing himself to read an article about Israel’s cost-of-living, when next to him sat a woman in her fifties. A large woman, with unnatural red hair, and a too-sweet perfume, the kind of scent that came before her and stayed after she’d gone.

  She sat near him and called someone on her cell phone, “Hi, Ori. I'm here. He’s in surgery at the moment. As I understood, his status is severe but stable and it’ll take some time because there are a few more surgeries he has to go through.”

  The case’s description immediately caught Dan’s attention. It was Tom she was describing. She continued and Dan was listening closely, eyes on the newspaper and ears to her call, “Debi and Ehud are already on the flight. Abigail’s pregnant again, so she’s staying in Kansas, and if I know Ehud, he’ll put Tom on a plane back to the U.S, the second he can.”

  Dan had learned about Tom’s family in a single sentence, more than he had from Tom in all of the months they spent together. It wasn’t a subject Tom wanted to talk about, and Dan had respected that.

  “That’s all he needs, the poor guy, to wake up from a surgery and deal with his parents. I don’t envy him. I just hope he’ll be okay and get through this alive. We’ll deal with the rest later,” she paused and listened to the response from the other end of the call and answered, “No, sweetie, you don’t have to come here; I'll update you the second I have something, and I'll probably spend the night here at the hospital,” again, she stopped, and then ended the call, “Bye, Ori, take care!”

  “So you’re the aunt from Poria?!” asked Dan, stating the obvious and looking at her with curiosity.

  “Dan! You’re Dan? I'm Sarah, Tom’s aunt, and yes I'm from Poria,” she said with a glowing smile while extending her hand. Dan was shocked; it was the last reaction he’d expected from her.

  “Tom told me all about you. I'm glad you’re here. I know how important you are to him,” she said.

  “I have to admit I'm surprised, I thought you weren’t in touch after the events that made him leave Poria,” he said gently.

  “The events that made him leave were unfortunate and stupid. Saying that, we kept in touch all the time he was at your place. He told me about you, mainly about how much you care for him and his wellbeing, thank you for that, thank you for taking care of my nephew,” she said.

  “What exactly do you know about the relationship between Tom and I?” asked Dan.

  She looked at him with curiosity and smiled, “Actually, he didn’t specify the nature of the relationship, only that you coming in to his life was just what h
e needed after he left my place. My impression is that he thinks the world of you.”

  “Do you know about Tom?” he hesitantly asked.

  “Know what? That he’s gay? Of course I know. There are a lot of things that I know which I'm guessing he didn’t tell you.”

  “I think it’s time to tell me, from the little bit I overheard from your phone call… and I'm sorry for eavesdropping. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of drama that I'd very much like to prevent or at least be prepare for. Something relating to Ehud bringing him back to the U.S.” said Dan.

  “I don’t know if I have the right to tell you about things that Tom chose not to confide in you, Dan. No offence, but it’s not my place to share his private matters, given that he didn’t do it himself,” she said, apologetically.

  “So let me enlighten you. As far as the nature of our relationship goes.

  Not too long ago, Tom and I became partners. Which means that he’s the most important person in the world to me and if someone tried to lay a finger on him, or decide something for him, decisions that don’t correspond with my will as his partner… I'll fight it with everything I’ve got, so much so that the hospital’s foundations will shake. I’ll go to court if necessary. I suggest that, given the situation, you should rethink your priorities and put Tom’s best interests before his privacy. Please understand that I’ll only serve his best interests with the information.”

  He was adamant, and she needed that tone and those explanations in order to give in and cooperate.

  “I understand, Dan. I admit I wasn’t aware of the nature of your relationship and I'm glad Tom finally found love and someone who cares enough to fight for him. I do think it’s better if you heard what you’re dealing with, so I'm going to tell you.

  Ehud, my brother, and his wife Debbi, left for the U.S when Tom and Abigail were young. Abi, as we used to call her, is Tom’s twin sister. Around the time the twins started high-school, Debbi started becoming religious. It was a combination of lack of family support, loneliness and self-searching. What started as weekly meetings and lectures from female Rabbis continued on to keeping kosher and truly embracing Judaism.

  At first, Ehud, my brother, didn’t really connect to the process, neither did the kids. But with time, they tried to join in, mostly to satisfy Debbi, who today, by the way, is Deborah. Ehud started going to synagogue, listening to lectures, making sure to pray and quite quickly he became religious. I could feel it on phone calls with him. Every time we would talk he’d sound more and more distant, more and more different than the brother I’d known. More and more ‘if God's willing’ would come into his sentences, and ‘Everything is in God’s hands’. Abi started to keep the religious commandments herself and moved to a Jewish high-school when they still lived in Texas.

  Tom was defiant, he didn’t want to become religious. It was around the time he became aware of his sexuality, and acceptance by his now religious parents seemed impossible. He couldn’t tell them, when he knew that belief and religion had such a tight hold on them. Toward the end of high-school he would e-mail me quite often and tell me what was happening at home and about the distress of being around his parents ‘conversion’. He told me he was gay and that he couldn’t tell them anything, and so I tried supporting him as much as I could. I gave him attention and acceptance.

  Things got out of control when they decided to move to Kansas. They became extremely religious and they wanted to move to an orthodox Jewish community. Lacking an orthodox community in Texas, they decided to move to Kansas. Tom went crazy, he was at the end of high-school, he finished it at the age of seventeen and wanted to go to college immediately after; he had a boyfriend he didn’t want to leave. They fought and screamed and blamed him for his defiance against joining them in the process of becoming a religious family. They were furious with him wanting to study science instead of going to bible study. He blamed them for being blind and stupid, and after a month of struggling and endless fights, they came to a compromise. It was agreed that he’d move with them to Kansas but could go to a college of his choosing and live in the dorms.

  For the next three years, he worked hard on his degree in mathematics and reduced contact with them to a minimum. Abi, who returned to being Abigail, managed to get married to a guy from the orthodox community. Tom came to the wedding and escaped it after thirty minutes. I've never seen him so miserable. I was at the wedding and we said we’d meet the next day without revealing it to Ehud. During the meeting he cried a lot. He was depressed, lonely, and broken. He was nearing the end of his studies and the thought of going back to his parents was unacceptable. I suggested him to come to Israel, I told him that Israel is a very tolerant country when it comes to gays, and the IDF is known to be one of the most ‘gay-friendly’ armies in the world.

  He liked the idea and decided to come to Israel and join up. I told him he could live with me while serving and he gladly accepted the offer.

  When Ehud heard about the plan, he lost it, he screamed and raged. He blamed me for kidnapping his onl son, called me a murderer and a lost soul, and he banished me in disgrace. Tom didn’t forgive him for that, and during his service in the army he was barely in touch with them.

  I assume that, for Ehud, military service equaled death. We lost our older brother in the First Lebanon War, and the scars never really healed. More than that, the religious thing drove him insane and he didn’t understand why Tom didn’t become orthodox along with them, and was choosing a completely opposite way of life from theirs. That's even without knowing about Tom's sexuality,” she finished and took a breath.

  “I admit I'm shocked and I had no idea about any of this. For some reason Tom outright refused to talk about it, and every time I came close to family matters, he told me in not so many words to stay away from the topic. I understand he doesn’t want to talk, but I really don’t understand why he kept it from me. He’s very open about his sexuality, he’s not the type to keep stuff in, usually. But this? This he chose to keep as a secret? I really don’t get it.” Tom said.

  “I think he’s ashamed of them. I think they make him be ashamed of himself. I think they’re doubting his ability to accept himself as he is. The very fact that he knows they won’t accept his sexuality, and the fact that he will be considered a lost cause once they know; he got himself used to being some kind of an orphan. Maybe he thought that not talking about them would help erase them from his mind. I'm not an expert, but I guess that’s what it’s about. The truth is that the reason matters less than the result, and the result worries me so much, because they’re on their way here. I haven’t talked to them since the ordeal in Kansas, Tom didn’t want to see or hear from them, and I'm afraid that Ehud might make decisions that Tom wouldn’t accept. Only because of the state he’s in right now,” she said with a worried voice.

  “If I have to stop them with my own body, I will. I promise you they won’t touch him. Unfortunately he didn’t manage to authorize me as a decision maker on his behalf. But it won’t stop me, and I hope there won’t be a need to make any hard decisions while he’s still sedated. The moment he wakes up it’ll be easier,” said Dan.

  “I actually very much worry that if he wakes up and sees them right in front of him he’ll just go right back to sleep! I'm quite sure they’re the last thing he wants to see when he regains consciousness,” she said.

  “As I see it, we’re expecting heavy drama here, Sarah. I'd be happy to reduce it to a minimum and allow Tom to wake up and get himself together without dealing with moral and family dilemmas.”

  “It has to happen sooner or later, Dan. It’s better if it happens while Tom has support. I'm with you both! If the relationship between him and his parents need to end, finally, we’ll be here for him. He will know he’s not alone in the world,” she said decisively.

  “I have to tell you… I'm surprised. I got the impression from Tom that you have some bad blood between the two of you. The more I understand your position, and your invol
vement in Tom and his parent’s lives, I wonder, what made him leave Poria?”

  Sarah lowered her eyes. She couldn’t look at him, and he assumed that the events that brought her and Tom to separate made her feel sad and ashamed.

  “Oh, it was stupid! So stupid. I was traveling with Hannah, my friend, for a weekend in Prague, and told Tom I wouldn’t be home. He asked if he could bring someone over to hang out with at my place. I wasn’t too excited about the idea, especially because I was worried about him hanging out with someone I didn’t know, but I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to be the one to deny a tired soldier the little comfort he gets. Anyway, I left to Prague and didn’t bother to tell Ori, my son, that Tom would be home.

  Ori didn’t know Tom was gay, not that Tom asked me to hide it or anything, but Ori is an old-fashioned type of guy, just like his father, rest his soul. He and Tom didn’t really connect, and I left it like that.

  Ori decided to come by the apartment to see that everything was okay while I was gone. When he opened the door, with his own key, the last thing he expected to see was two naked men on the couch in the living room - one of them being his cousin.

  He was raging and screaming. He kicked the stranger out of the apartment, and told Tom to pack his things and get out of the house. Tom did exactly that,” she stopped for a moment and tried to calm down. It was obvious the memories brought her pain, “When I came back and found out what had happened, I broke down and cried. I was angry with myself mostly, but with Ori, too. Ori claimed he thought the whole thing was going on behind my back.

  I explained to him that I knew and that he didn’t have the right to do what he did. It went on to an ideological argument, he criticized me by saying I support gay activity. I'm ashamed to admit I raised a bit of a homophobe. Unfortunately, we’re very different in our political and moral views, but let’s not go into that. I demanded Ori to call and apologize. He refused at first, but when he understood it would crack the relationship between us he changed his mind. After all, I am a widow, and Ori is my only son.