by S. Yizhar
“What do you mean? Are they too small, are they too virtuous? And apart from that there’s always going to be two or three or more of them that you won’t even know about.”
“It’s just fantasies,” I said.
“So what do you suggest?” said Yehuda.
“I just don’t know anymore…”
“If you don’t know—then shut up,” said Yehuda.
And it seemed that this was the advice that I had preferred from the outset. But I was overburdened with words. And once I had started I didn’t know how to stop. And since I had no one to argue with—I argued with myself. And this is what I said to myself: But this is a war! Well is it a war or isn’t it? And if it’s a war, well, all’s fair in war. Second voice: War? Against who, these people? First voice (continuing as though he’s heard nothing): Perfect saints they’re not (but who is?). And even if our intentions are good and honest—you can’t go into the water and not get wet (wonder of wonders!). To understand and agree that we’ve got to act—that’s one thing, but to set out and harden your heart and do all sorts of things—that’s always something else … What’s more, who is it who has to be tough and harden his heart? Whoever happens to be tough, and indifferent, anyway. Short break. Immediately, with an apologetic fury that turned into a counterattack: And those villages that we took by storm in the war, were they any different? Or those who ran away of their own accord, frightened by their own shadows? Or villages full of bandits, for whom the fate of Sodom is too good, weren’t they entirely different? But not this … not this … something was still unclear. Just a kind of bad feeling. Like being forced into a nightmare and not being allowed to wake up from it. You’re caught up with several voices. You don’t know what. Maybe the answer is to stand up and resist? But maybe, the opposite, to see and be and feel until the blood flows in order to … in order to what? Time is passing. Time is passing. Man. (Emotional pause.) You are so weak. (Another pause.) If you look you’ll burst. (Bleeding heart, bleeding heart, bleeding heart!)
Beneath the sycamore the huddle had grown in the meantime. There were several dozen now sitting in a circle, maybe a hundred people altogether. If you glanced sideways and overlooked the circumstances you could have easily been misled into recalling those village market days, a birthday, the commemoration of some nabi or sheikh, when everyone gathered together in the same kind of huddle, under every green tree, in any puddle of shade, waiting in a festive heaving moving mass, like a lump of dough, not bothering about flies or smells or sweat or the crush and hubbub, so long as that thing, that festive thing they had been looking forward to, happened—but this silence left no room for such delusion, even when now you could hear a sort of buzzing like bees, a furtive rustling, seething, and swelling, in the shade of the great tree. One man, with a prodigious mustache, sat at the edge of the circle patiently rolling a cigarette in his dark peasant hands, transforming the lap of his robe into a tiny workshop for the purpose, gathering up the crumbs of tobacco and packing and tamping them in the trumpet of paper, tapping it this way and that, fussing with his flint and tinder until it finally produced a glow, which was nurtured with blowing and shielded with the cup of a hand, and lit it, raising for his enjoyment a pungent cloud of smoke, demonstrating the last scrap of freedom remaining in his possession, and also some hope for a future, a sort of everything-will-be-all-right that someone always kindled through wishful thinking, which he immediately believed in as though it were the first step toward salvation and even infected his neighbors with his good faith—such a fine quality, which was now made all the more pathetic and gullible since you (like the Lord in Heaven, as it were) knew what he did not know yet.
There was someone else right next to him, and this one was sketching in the sand, slanting, crossing, and winding lines, moving his finger in the paths of the sand with an absentmindedness that was a different form of concentration, but it was not hard to read what he’d drawn, the declaration of a broken man.
What if one of them were to stand up and say, We’re not moving from here, villagers, take courage and be men!
My eyes roamed this way and that. I was ill at ease. Where did this sense come from that I was being accused of some crime. And what was it that was beginning to press upon me to look for excuses? My comrades’ calm behavior only intensified my own sense of distress. Didn’t they realize? Or were they just pretending not to know? They wouldn’t even believe me if I told them, apart from the fact that I didn’t know what to tell them, and if only I knew how to say what was inside me. I was uneasy. I needed something, something to grasp hold of. I clung to that famous phrase in the operational orders “operatives dispatched on hostile missions.” I conjured up before my eyes all the terrible outrages that the Arabs had committed against us. I recited the names of Hebron, Safed, Be’er Tuvia, and Hulda. I seized on necessity, the necessity of the moment, which with the passage of time, when everything was settled, would also be set straight. I once again contemplated the mass of people, seething indistinctly and innocently at my feet—and I found no comfort. I prayed at that moment that something would happen to seize me and take me away from here so I would not see what happened next.
At this very moment Moishe turned to me and told me to get on the jeep with the wireless operator and Shlomo and Yehuda and go check out the area. It was easy to understand how I leapt up and how we uprooted ourselves from where we were (with all eyes watching our actions) on the double, despite the narrow winding lanes. This filthy Khirbet Khizeh. This war. The whole business.
We climbed the slope of a hill, which had never even in its dreams seen anything driving over it with such dizzying boldness, as the incline was dislodged beneath wheels that repeatedly grabbed at its cascading pebbles; drawing a momentary effort, and raging with all its strength and joyful desire at a trial of strength, the jeep quickly reached the topmost height, and there we sought out a place and surveyed the entire land below us.
A first glance and the great land stretched out before you, emphasizing all its sharp-hewn outlines, hunched and hollowed with drenched lushness, in a light that was growing whiter, and with a bit of a breeze that had started in the meantime and blew upon us a breath of beauty, of enjoyment, to the point that it could be tasted, a thrill of pleasure. Everything took on a new dimension, areas were opened and closed, and it appeared there was something that had almost been forgotten but actually seemed solid, and you could lean on it—until the next moment, as its being became real, suddenly here was the checkerboard of fields, plowed and verdant, and the patches of shade-dappled orchards, and the hedges that dissected the area into peaceful forms stretching into the distance, and the variegated hills that blocked and revealed distant pale bluish horizons—and suddenly upon all these an orphaned longing descended, a shadowy veil. Fields that would never be harvested, plantations that would never be irrigated, paths that would become desolate. A sense of destruction and worthlessness. An image of thistles and brambles everywhere, a desolate tawniness, a braying wilderness. And already from those fields accusing eyes peered out at you, that silent accusatory look as of a reproachful animal, staring and following you so there was no refuge.
Then we saw in the distance, on another hill, which was cut by the big dirt track, several trucks rolling heavily along, crawling like blind beetles, struggling with the potholes in the road, their sound still inaudible. Apparently what I was thinking was visible on my face without my knowing it, as the wireless operator, in the midst of his communication, turned to me and said:
“You’re in some mood today, what’s up?”
“I’m not in any mood today, and nothing’s up,” I snapped in a tone that didn’t exactly suggest the sound of sheep chewing cud at sunset, and that shouted, if you don’t mind—“you wanna get hit, come and get hit!” with the vehemence of a man cursing another out of hatred for his face that had betrayed what he held in his heart.
We descended from the hilltop, into the jaws of death (that flattered my inner thoughts)
, to another plantation, and while we were sinking into the sludge and the mire, frantically moving backward and forward trying to find a way out, Yehuda, who had climbed out to help by pushing, got doused by a dollop of mud and came back to us, smeared, dripping, and sprayed; he bellowed a heartfelt roar at the driver for his witticisms that were no longer funny and cursed our laughter and mockery, promising that he would show us, but his fury still hadn’t been assuaged when we finally emerged onto the dirt track, nor even when we comforted him with the thought that as soon as he was dry the whole lot would fall off without leaving a trace, because mud isn’t dirt but simply wet soil.
We continued to circle on the desolate paths, we wandered between hedges huddled like frightened sheep, crossing open, spongy, absorbent tracks, beyond which the crops were sprouting as from time immemorial, combed by the breeze with waves of shallow shadows, with their usual ebb and flow. But I imagined I saw a hand inscribing sternly, “Won’t be harvested,” and wearily crossing the entire field and its neighbor, and passing over the fallow, and the plow, and being swallowed up with a faint shudder among the hills. We examined the entire agricultural plan of the village and its fields, we fathomed their purpose in selecting places for planting, and we grasped their reasoning in the layout of the vegetable plots; the purpose of the field crops, the fallow land, and the crop rotation became clear to us, it was all so evident (even if you could have planned something better suited to our tastes, and we had already started to do so, without realizing it, each of us in his own mind) and all that was needed was for them to come and carry on with what they were doing. Some plots were left fallow, and others were sown, by design, everything was carefully thought out, they had looked at the clouds and observed the wind, and they might also have foreseen drought, flooding, mildew, and even field mice; they had also calculated the implications of rising and falling prices, so that if you were beset by a loss in one sector you’d be saved by a gain in another, and if you lost on grain, the onions might come to the rescue, apart, of course, from the one calculation that they had failed to make, and that was the one that was stalking around, here and now, descending into their spacious fields in order to dispossess them.
Since the paths were muddy, and because we had circled the extremities of the fields (no one had appeared, apart from one time on a hillock to the side, when we saw a few people, but a single shot scattered them as though they had been swallowed up by the earth), we returned to the big dirt track after a considerable delay, and when we drove up onto it, four big transport trucks were waiting there in a row, in front of a long pool of water, which had opted for idleness and fallen peacefully asleep in the middle of the road, without leaving any room to pass on either side, and on its shores the drivers and their assistants were standing around, roaring advice and warnings to the other side, and apart from some other expressions they also said they had had enough of sinking in—and from now on the hell with it. It wouldn’t—in their view—hurt any Ayrab in the world to stir his dainty feet and walk up here, and thank us for this too! Meanwhile, facing them was our lieutenant who roared at them from the other side, but it was clear that he wasn’t making any headway, and, in fact, he was losing ground, his claim that you didn’t sink to the bottom of standing water was not accepted by anyone, since they refused to believe in the existence of any bottom underneath the water. Then our jeep was chosen to be the guinea pig and they suggested that we should cross the water, both fast enough not to get stuck and slowly enough not to get stuck. Of course exactly in the middle of the puddle, for some reason, our engine stalled, and it hardly mattered that a moment later it started up again and the jeep crossed the pool as easily as anything, spewing turbid waves on either side, apart from a filthy jet that found its way to the last remaining dry spot on Yehuda’s clothing, and the poor wretch was so enraged that he could only maintain an ominous and ludicrous silence, but the matter was not settled and the drivers refused to listen and declared that they were turning round, in various maneuvers, on the spot, on the dirt track, and we should bring our Arabs up through a gap in the hedge, and we had wasted so much time for nothing, which was exactly what they had predicted at the outset. Then our lieutenant climbed back into the jeep and returned to the village, leaving us with instructions to widen the gap and prepare the way.
Naturally none of us lifted a finger, apart from casually bashing two or three cactus leaves with our rifle butts, and instead we sat down to watch the struggles of the drivers with their clumsy vehicles in the narrow road, appraising each of their movements with professional knowledge, artistic insight, and cigarette smoke. But Yehuda went to the other side, the sunny one, and stood there casting disappointed glances at the sun and wondering at its power. In the midst of all this activity, we did not notice the sudden arrival of the first groups of Arabs, who stood before us with that distinctive smell of their clothes. At once our laughter died down and we put on curious, dutiful faces, and I had the impression that we felt that something was beginning here, something that was greater than what we’d been expecting, apparently.
I don’t know if they had been told before they left what was awaiting them or where they were being taken. At any rate their appearance and their gait recalled nothing so much as a confused, obedient, groaning flock of sheep, unable to take stock of their situation. Nevertheless, here and there, a few of them appeared to be imagining the worst, and some of them may have even been suspecting, wordlessly, with fear in their hearts, with panic in their breasts, that they were all being led to the slaughter.
The first group was standing by the gap in the hedge. This field might have belonged to one of them. And this place, which we considered just any old place, they considered a specific place that was close to something and far from something else and belonged to somebody and had a greater meaning than just some big dirt track. They stared at the trucks with a gaze that gradually filled with a realization of what was happening to them. And then they turned their eyes on us, seeking out among us someone with whom they might be able to speak, from whom they could hope for something. One of them, in a striped robe with a gleaming buckle on his leather belt, held up his left hand, with the bent fingers of a working man who was not working, and grumbled something. Immediately someone shouted at him in a voice that, whatever it was like really, sounded unnecessarily loud and grating: “Yallah! Yallah!” And the anonymous mass of people started moving and stooped at the breach, and came through one after another, and they continued walking uphill in a row along the low cactus hedge, and came out again on the other side of the puddle next to the first truck, whose tailgate had been lowered.
The driver and his mate stood there to keep them moving, extending a hand to one or another and sending him on his way with a push, saying a word to one, observing about this one that he was fat and about that one that he must be a real bastard, and about yet another that he was so old he must be eighty or even ninety, for sure. It was amazing how none of them protested or objected. With resignation they climbed up and huddled together on the truck.
“That’s it,” said the driver with satisfaction.
“Count how many you’ve got there,” they shouted at him from this side of the water.
“How come they’re not taking any stuff with them?” asked the driver.
“What stuff?” they asked him.
“Possessions, bedding, I dunno.”
“There’s no stuff. There’s nothing. Take them away from here and let them go to hell,” they answered him from our side. And again there was something that didn’t seem right or proper, but nobody interfered.
At this point suddenly from on top of the truck an Arab, the one with the striped shirt and shiny belt buckle, turned to us and said:
“Ya khawaja”—his voice gaining strength as he spoke—“ya khawajat,” he corrected himself to the plural “sirs,” so as to address us all, and he started speaking, reciting, expounding, as though he were reading holy writ, and with something of the vehemence of s
omeone who knew he was innocent and could prove it. But we couldn’t understand much of what he was saying, and the harsh guttural consonants of his pronunciation seemed strange and almost exaggerated to us, like sounds in and of themselves. Our silence only encouraged him and he waved his left hand to reinforce his demands, and there seemed to be a rustle of approval from on board the truck and glances from there watching for any sign of success. But in the meantime the next group had begun approaching, and we stopped paying attention to him.
The new arrivals moved in line. The sight of their predecessors on the truck startled them and they stopped walking. There were some women at the end of the line, and a sound of weeping broke from them. (My skin began to tingle.) It seemed as though this time something would happen. Two old men passed in front of me, mumbling as they walked, both to each other and each to himself. They tried to pause opposite the jeep, which seemed to them a place of honor, to have their say, but they were waved on with yallah yallah. And they did what they were told. But instead of crossing at the gap in the hedge they continued straight through the puddle, their bare feet dabbling in the water as they casually raised the hems of their robes, as if there was nothing special about walking through a puddle, and the others walked behind them, assuming that this was the way, splashing through the water. Somebody sighed and removed his shoes to walk through the water. I don’t know why this gesture seemed so humiliating and demeaning. Like animals, I thought, like animals. However, as soon as the women had crossed one of them turned toward us and took hold of Shlomo’s sleeve, weeping and pleading with him. Shlomo shook her off, looking here and there for suggestions, or, maybe, permission to show her pity. But Yehuda, who was standing there, forgetting all about his spattered clothes, said to her sternly: “Yallah yallah, you too!” And the woman, startled, walked on, while Shlomo said dismissively, either by way of explanation or excuse: “And what would she have done all alone in the village anyway…”