Fields of Exile

by Nora Gold

  — 2 —

  The following evening at seven o’clock, Judith stands before the full-length mirror in the hallway. She’s wearing a low-cut red velvet gown, a long gold necklace, and black high heels. She can see objectively that she looks very attractive. But all day today, still reverberating from yesterday at school, she’s been in an introverted, fearful mood. Now she feels not like the elegant, sexy woman in the mirror, but just a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. A costume for the-day-after-Hallowe’en. Bobby has just been made junior partner at BBB, and they’re going out for dinner to celebrate at the fanciest, most expensive restaurant in Toronto. Bobby arrives, and after driving to the restaurant, they eat a leisurely, sensual, seven-course meal. They drink champagne, get very tipsy and laugh a lot, and back at Bobby’s place, they make love twice before falling asleep.

  The next morning, she awakens at five. She slips out of bed, slides over her naked body a T-shirt of Bobby’s that comes down almost to her knees, and pads barefoot across the carpeted house into the kitchen with its cold tiled floor. She brews a pot of coffee, then sits at the kitchen table, drinking from a turquoise cup and reading old newspapers and magazines. Bobby has been very busy lately and never throws out anything until he’s read it, so in the corner of his kitchen there’s a four-foot stack of reading material. She riffles through the past six months of the Sunday New York Times, the Forward, Commentary, the Canadian Jewish News, and the occasional National Post or Globe and Mail. While she reads she bites her left thumbnail, occasionally muttering softly, “Fuck,” or “Oh my God.” An hour and a half later, Bobby staggers in, bleary-eyed, wearing his shabby blue bathrobe. He stares at the kitchen table piled high with newspapers.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  She barely glances up. “This is unbelievable,” she says. “I can’t believe what I’m reading.”

  Bobby looks around the kitchen as if searching for something.

  “The coffee’s on the stove,” she says. “I saved you some. I don’t know how hot it is, though.”

  He pours himself a cup, takes a sip, warms it in the microwave, and then sits at the table.

  “Do you know what’s been going on in the world lately?” she asks. “Have you any idea?”

  He just grunts and sips some coffee.

  “Listen to this,” she says. “This is from the Canadian Jewish News. It’s a summary of the antisemitic incidents all around the world during the past six months.”

  “Please,” he says, his eyes still almost closed like a day-old puppy’s. “I just woke up. I haven’t even had my coffee.”

  “Seriously — listen. In Belgium a group of thugs beat up the chief rabbi, kicking him in the face, and calling him a ‘dirty Jew.’ Two synagogues in Brussels were firebombed; a third was sprayed with automatic weapons fire. In Britain a yeshiva student was stabbed twenty-seven times on a London bus. ‘Antisemitism and its open expression,’ wrote Petronella Wyatt, a columnist in the Spectator, ‘has become respectable at London dinner tables.’ She quoted one member of the House of Lords as saying: ‘The Jews have been asking for it and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.’ In Germany —”

  “Okay, okay,” says Bobby. “I get the picture.”

  “No, let me finish. In Germany, a rabbinical student was beaten up in downtown Berlin. In the Ukraine, they smashed the windows of the main synagogue. In Greece, Jewish graves were desecrated. In Istanbul, two synagogues were bombed in the same day, killing twenty-four people, and injuring three hundred. In France, the situation is worse than anywhere: in Paris alone, there have been ten to twelve anti-Jewish incidents daily. The statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris was painted with the words ‘Dirty Jew.’ In the Jewish neighbourhoods, walls have been defaced with ‘Jews to the gas chambers’ and ‘Death to the Jews.’ And this one totally freaks me out: a young girl in Aix-en-Provence was accosted by three masked men who called her ‘dirty Jew’ and carved a Jewish star into her arm. I can’t believe this, Bobby. It’s like in the past four months since my father died, the world has gone completely mad.”

  Bobby is more awake now. With half-open eyes, he looks almost kindly at her. “It’s not just the past four months, Judith; it’s the past two years. Ever since the second intifada started. On that legal committee I volunteer for with the Jewish community, we’ve been tracking these incidents ever since then. Even longer. Including what’s happening locally — in Ontario and all across Canada.”

  “This can’t be right,” she says. “These things weren’t going on when I came back here a year ago.”

  “Sure they were. It had already started before that.” He gets up and refills his cup. “You want some more?” he asks, holding up the pot, but she shakes her head. “You weren’t here then — you were still in Israel. So of course you wouldn’t know.”

  “I’d have known. There are newspapers. There’s CNN. If all this is true, how come I never heard about any of it?”

  “I tried telling you several times, but you never wanted to hear.”

  She considers this for a moment. It’s true: he intermittently brought up this topic, and she always brushed it away. “I thought it was just your usual obsession with the Holocaust. I didn’t realize things were truly this bad.”

  He smiles ruefully, takes another sip of coffee, and says, “You’ve had a few other things on your mind since coming back here.”

  “Yes,” she says, pushing away a short stack of newspapers. She sees herself fourteen months ago arriving at the Toronto airport, one suitcase in hand, not knowing how long she’d be staying. How long her father would live. On the one hand, of course, hoping he’d live forever. But also wanting to get back soon to Israel. Then, once she was here with him, while he was dying, his body growing yellower and more emaciated by the week, she couldn’t have cared less about what was happening in the world. Of course, she still followed the news from Israel. But Canadian, or Canadian Jewish, news? Why bother? It’s only galut, she thought back then. And anyway, if Canadian Jews choose life in galut, antisemitism is intrinsic, so they should stop whining about it. Now she cringes at the memory.

  Bobby is standing by the fridge with the door open. “What do you want for breakfast?” he asks.

  “Whatever,” she says dully.

  “Toast? Eggs?”

  “Sure. No, wait — I should be making you breakfast. Your first day as junior partner —”

  “Ehh,” he says with a shrug, and reaches into the fridge for the eggs. She gazes at his bent-over back and then speaks to it.

  “I didn’t tell you last night — I didn’t want to ruin your celebration,” she says. “But something occurred two days ago at school.” She proceeds to tell him about Greg’s class. He turns to face her and stands perfectly still, listening, with the fridge door wide open behind him. He’s holding a carton of eggs and a block of butter, and his lips are tightly pursed.

  “Fuckin’ antisemites,” he says when she’s finished. He kicks the fridge door shut.

  “I don’t know. Was that really antisemitism? This is antisemitism,” she says, tapping the article in the Canadian Jewish News. “That bit Kerry said about Jews controlling the banks and the media, okay. That’s straight out of The Protocols. But the rest of what she said — I’m not so sure. It’s like she was attacking someone I love — and unfairly, mentioning nothing about them but their faults. But it’s not illegal, or even immoral, to attack someone I love. Even if it hurts me.”

  He puts down the eggs and butter. “Of course not,” he says. “Legitimate criticism of Israel is obviously not antisemitic. For instance, you and your friends in Israel are all very critical of Sharon and the occupation, and I know a number of people here in Toronto, Jews and non-Jews, who feel the same way. But that’s different from anti-Zionism, or the newer term, anti-Israelism, which both involve hating Israel. Anyone who hates Israel, who wants Israel not to exist, is an antisemite.”

  “Kerry and those guys, they don’t ha
te Israel. They just —”

  She stops abruptly.

  “They just what?” Leaning against the counter, he watches her.

  She looks at him with a peculiar, stunned expression, like someone’s just banged her over the head. She says wonderingly, “They hate Israel. They do. They believe we should give the whole country to the Palestinians. That they have all the rights to the land, and we have none. We deserve nothing. You could feel their hatred for Israel. It was scary.”

  “Of course it was. Antisemitism is a scary thing. What you’ve just had a taste of is ‘the new antisemitism.’”

  She frowns. “I’ve been seeing that phrase all morning. But I don’t completely get what it is.”

  He sighs and sets down the frying pan and spatula. “We were just talking about this at that committee. Basically the new antisemitism isn’t that new. It’s actually a recycling of the old kind, just in a new form. Traditional antisemitism involved hating, reviling, and persecuting individual Jews; with the new antisemitism it’s the Jewish collectivity, in other words the Jewish State, that is hated, reviled, and persecuted. Israel is the symbol and essence of all evil. In Christian terms, the anti-Christ; in terms of contemporary culture, Israel is the Darth Vader of the world. It is evil and hated and must be destroyed.”

  She stares at him. “That’s exactly how I felt in Greg’s class. That Kerry and those guys see Israel as evil. I’ve never felt that before. Obviously I knew there’s a lot of criticism of Israel internationally. But I thought most of that, say, here in Canada, was because people don’t like Sharon. But neither do I. So I never thought about it the way you’re putting it now: as antisemitism. I thought they opposed Sharon, so by extension they opposed Israel. But now I think there’s more to it than that. There’s definitely something to what you’re saying. I can’t believe Kerry mixed The Protocols in with her criticisms of Israel.”

  “Of course she did,” he says, folding his arms. “That’s classic. Merging the old antisemitism and the new, all under the guise of caring about the Palestinians. It’s not coincidental that Israel is a Jewish state. It’s precisely because it is a Jewish state that it constantly gets singled out as the worst country in the whole world, and the only one that doesn’t deserve to exist. Antisemitism courtesy of your friends on the left.”

  She blinks in confusion. “My friends? Kerry’s not my friend. Anyway, this has nothing to do with being on the left.”

  He laughs. “Of course it does. This new antisemitism was invented by the left. It’s their own special brand of antisemitism. Complete with the PC stamp of approval.”

  “Oh, Bobby, don’t. I can’t have this argument right now. Anyhow, you’re mixing apples and oranges.”

  “Are you defending these people, these antisemites, just because they’re lefties?”

  “I’m not defending anybody.” She now feels very tired and physically weak. She’s been up since five o’clock, and they went to sleep at 1:00 a.m. “I’m just saying that not everyone on the left is a ‘new antisemite’ — or an old one, either. And even the ones who are, don’t necessarily think this way just because they’re on the left — it has nothing to do with that. As for ‘my friends,’ as you put it, the people who are my friends at Dunhill are good people. Like Cindy and Suzy. They’re nothing like Kerry. There are people like Kerry, but there are a lot of good lefties, too, who genuinely care about people and human rights.”

  “Sure they care about people and their human rights. As long as the people are Palestinians. Their hearts bleed for the Palestinians. But not for Israelis or Jews. No. Israelis have no human rights. Your friends on the left are a bunch of hypocrites.”

  She feels her temper flare. “Like the right has always been so good to the Jews.”

  “Better than the left.”

  “Come on.”

  “Anyway, I’m not on the right. I’m in the centre.”

  “That’s what people on the right always say. That’s how you know someone is on the right: They always say, ‘I’m not on the right; I’m in the centre.’”

  “Study history, Judith. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Now she mimics him in a nasal, mocking voice, exactly the way she knows he hates being mocked: “‘Study history, Judith — study history.’ Who do you think you are — my teacher?” But when she sees his stricken face, and he doesn’t answer, she’s sorry and adds conciliatorily: “One thing I learned from studying Jewish history is that the Temple was destroyed because of groundless hatred — because we fought among ourselves over nothing. So let’s not fight anymore. If we can’t get along, a lefty and a righty who love each other, what hope is there for the Jewish people?”

  He smiles thinly. Silently he brings a bowl, fork, and the eggs to the table, and sits. He cracks open four eggs. Then he begins beating them furiously with the fork. She watches him, searching for something neutral to say.

  “In Israel,” she offers, “one of the most popular Hebrew expressions is ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’”

  He just glances at her without speaking and goes back to pounding the eggs. She tries again: “Did you know that in Hebrew the word for eggs, baitzim, is the same as the word for a guy’s balls?”

  This one gets a smile from him. “Really?” He looks down quizzically at the fork in his hand. “Maybe I should be doing this more gently.” She laughs. He takes the bowl of yellow foam to the stove, ignites the flame under the greased pan, and pours in the eggs. There’s a sizzling sound and then the rising smell of eggs cooking in butter.

  “Bobby,” she says urgently, “what can I do about what happened in Greg’s class?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There must be something I can do. I can’t just let Kerry and people like her go around saying whatever they want about Israel. Spraying all that hate into the air. Nowadays no one gets away with doing that — with racism or homophobia or anything else. They shouldn’t be allowed to with this new antisemitism, either.”

  Something in his face hardens. Sharp lines of bone appear in his jaw. “I’ll tell you what you can do,” he says. “You can write your papers, finish your M.S.W., and get the fuck out of that school as fast as your legs can carry you. That’s what you can do. And here’s what you cannot do — what you absolutely mustn’t do: try to be a knight on a white horse, like Bonnie Bertha.”

  “Like who?”

  “Bonnie Bertha. That girl in your class.”

  “Mary Martha.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, that’s not you, Judith. You’re not the martyr type. Right now you’ve got one thing to do, and that’s finish your courses and graduate. After that, you can do whatever you want. We could even get married.” She frowns. “Okay, scratch that. I know I promised not to bring that up for a while. But I mean what I’m saying. Just get through this year.”

  He turns toward the stove, flips the eggs, and carries two laden plates to the table. She gets cutlery, orange juice, and glasses, and they eat. He glances at his watch.

  “Fuck — it’s only seven. What time did you get up?”

  “Five,” she says with her mouth full of toast.

  “Barbaric.”

  “When do you have to be at the office today?”

  “Not till eight-thirty. I’m fine.”

  They eat awhile in silence. Then she says, “I should’ve said something. I should’ve said something right then and there — struck while the iron was hot.”

  “What would you have said?”

  “I thought about it yesterday. I have a whole script. About Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East. Not being like South Africa because in South Africa they didn’t have blacks in their parliament, and in our parliament 10 percent are Arabs. Stuff like that. I can answer Kerry one for one. But what I really want to say is, ‘Who the fuck are you? How dare you insult my country? What if I got up and insulted yours?’ That’s what I wish I’d said.”

  “It’s good
you didn’t. They’d have drawn and quartered you.” He wipes up the last bits of egg with his toast.

  “I don’t care. I should’ve said something. But I … froze. What do they call that in sports?”

  “Choking.”

  “I choked.”

  He takes a gulp of his coffee. “Forget it. That incident is behind you now and you don’t have to say anything to anybody. Just keep your mouth shut and play the game. In six months you’ll be out of there and you won’t ever have to see any of those people again.”

  “But I’m still going to have to look at myself in the mirror every morning. How can I just stand by and do nothing about this? What did Mordechai say to Queen Esther? ‘Don’t think if you keep silent at this time …’”

  He laughs. “So now you’re Queen Esther?! Enough of your fantasy life, Judith. This is the real world. Nobody likes a martyr — it just makes them feel guilty and bad about themselves. You’ll ruin your whole year fighting with people for nothing. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind about Israel. Let it go.”