by Assaf Gavron
“Of course you aren’t a leftist, you simply recognize an opportunity for some wheeling and dealing and suddenly the Arabs are your friends.”
“What exactly are you saying? You want me to leave?”
“Heaven forbid, that’s not what I said,” Gabi said, returning from the kitchen with two glasses of cold water with ice.
“Thanks,” said Roni—who throughout the conversation hadn’t moved an inch from his position in front of the fan, or offered to turn it to face his brother or switch on the rotate mode—“although it’s not really a substitute for Diet Coke.”
“You can stay for as long as you like,” Gabi said. “I’ve grown accustomed.”
“Me, too.” Roni laughed. “I’d no longer manage anywhere else.” And then he stretched and said, “I’m dead tired.” Gabi looked at the clock and stood up. There was more to do before the Sabbath came in—cooking, laundry, calls to make. Truthfully, however, he wouldn’t mind resting for a few minutes himself. He went into his room and looked at the bed, at the disheveled sheet, the crumpled pillow, and thought, I’ll lie down for just a brief moment, and then . . .
The Stray
On the Sabbath, even the stray felt the heavens and the earth weighing on his shoulders and eyelids, which narrowed into tiny slits to stave off the sun’s glare, survey his surroundings, ensure no danger lurked. His nostrils flared, his nose was wet and primed, and his small brain processed the data and the odors, the sights, and the sounds.
He grew up not far from here. Folks in the outpost didn’t know if he was of Jewish or Arab origin, a settler or an Ishmaelite—but he did. He knew, in his capillaries and DNA, and even in fragments of memory that flashed through his mind from time to time, he was Palestinian through and through, a native of Hebron, one of seven brothers and sisters, most of whom had remained in the city of their ancestors—two with their mother and her family, two down the street with cousins (one of them a known criminal), and two to wealthy brothers in the village of Yata. One brother was a doctor with a clinic in the city who showed up one day with his daughter—saw the sweet puppies and simply had to have one—and the other a university lecturer whose daughter became jealous of her cousin. And thus the stray’s six brothers and sisters were scattered, whereas he—cross-eyed, with a partial second row of teeth on his bottom jaw, who on first impression appeared far less cuddly than the others, less useful—belonged to the street, and there he remained, tried to survive, followed the scent of the food in the market, and fell in with a street pack.
One day his nose and paws led him to the Jewish enclave in the heart of the city. And he—what did he know, what did he understand about borders and checkpoints and nations and soldiers, he knew smells and nothing more—he followed his nose to the black army boots, which kicked him and cursed him and yelled, “Piss off, you filthy mutt!” He sounded an offended yelp but stood his ground and sniffed the air, a mournful look in his eyes.
“Hey! Didn’t you hear what I said? Motherfucker!” came the voice again. And the army boots drew nearer. “Piss off before I—”
“Hey, hey, hey, Lichtenstein! What has that poor thing done to you?” Lichtenstein’s boot froze in mid-swing of a particularly hard kick that probably would have broken a rib or two and perhaps even left him dead, and the second voice, the voice that saved him, Yaakobi’s voice, whispered in his ear, “Come here, sweet boy, what have they done to you? What does Lichtenstein want with you, huh?”
Yaakobi took him into the military base. And gave him food. And petted him. And allowed him into the barracks when it rained. And stood up for him when Lichtenstein and the others made fun of his cross-eyed stare and his odd teeth. He was Yaakobi’s friend, and if it had been up to him, he would have remained with him all his life. But when Yaakobi’s platoon commander returned from leave on Sunday morning, he told Yaakobi that the dog couldn’t stay. Yaakobi requested, pleaded, argued a case for animal welfare, but the platoon commander said he was sorry but those were the rules. As a favor to Yaakobi, who was a good soldier, the platoon commander agreed to allow the dog to remain on the base until Thursday, when Yaakobi would then be able to take him home. The problem, Yaakobi explained to the platoon commander, was that he already had a dog at home. Anyway, it’s a Palestinian dog and who knows what diseases it’s carrying, it’s almost certainly never been seen by a vet, after all. Yaakobi wanted it to be his army dog, not his home dog. He told the platoon commander the dog would be happy, the soldiers would be happy, everyone would be happy. Looking after the dog wouldn’t be a problem, he’d take care of it himself—so Yaakobi promised.
“Know something, you’re right,” the platoon commander said to him. “Who knows what he’s carrying—a Palestinian dog that showed up out of nowhere. He’s never been seen by a vet. I’ve changed my mind. He can’t stay until Thursday, he needs to get outta here right now.” Yaakobi fixed the platoon commander with a look of disbelief, and the dog laid its head on the rug in the barracks and abandoned itself to its cherished and pleasing caress. “Right now!” the platoon commander reiterated.
Lichtenstein, who had just returned from the showers with a towel around his waist and a khaki-colored toiletries bag in his hand, laughed. “Go on, Yaakobi, get rid of that cross-eyed mutt, I told you he’s stinking up our room.” Yaakobi remained silent.
Yaakobi managed to get the dog onto an armored Hummer that left for Jerusalem, and he asked the driver to drop off the dog in a safe-looking neighborhood. It was the least he could do for the dog so that it wouldn’t have to return to the mean streets of Hebron.
The Hummer driver, a friend of Yaakobi’s, agreed. The platoon commander agreed, too. Even Lichtenstein bade the dog farewell when the armored vehicle exited the camp gates. Yaakobi said his good-bye with a kiss on the nose and a whispered “You’ll be okay, I know, right?” The dog nodded.
Had his friend Yaakobi not implored him and asked explicitly, the Hummer driver would have left the animal anywhere on the side of the road, abandoning it to its fate and the mercy of the elements. But he restrained himself and tolerated the smell and discomfort of his motionless, cross-eyed companion, and when he passed through the Har Homa neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem to stop by his uncle’s place to collect a Beitar Jerusalem soccer club season ticket, he took the animal and left it by the side of one of the new roads under construction, some distance from his uncle’s house.
The dog watched the heavy-duty vehicle pull away with a roar of its engine—and sat there puzzled. Around him, he saw buildings and half buildings and the skeletons of buildings and heaps of sand. He saw an empty pool that had filled with rain, and he dipped his tongue in and lapped from its fine waters. He walked over to the framework of a building, found shelter from the wind, curled up in a corner, and went to sleep.
He opened his eyes at the break of dawn, to the calls of the laborers. One gave him a small piece of pita bread and a pinch of cheese, and water in a cottage cheese tub. Several nights and several days went by, and the dog lazed in its spot or went out on nighttime walks around the neighborhood, never running into a living soul other than a random fox, which raised its tail and fled.
Othniel, at the time, was adding on to his home at Ma’aleh Hermesh C., and was covering it in Jerusalem stone, and he needed cement and stones. A good friend discreetly informed him that he had taken out a mortgage on an apartment in Har Homa, construction there was going ahead at full steam, and construction material was plentiful, and Othniel was welcome to drop by one evening and load up his Renault Express with whatever he needed. The streets and houses had no signs or numbers yet, but the friend gave directions and said that even if Othniel failed to find the right building, it was no big deal. The materials were there to build up the country and its settlement, the government was all for it, the contractors were are all for it, and the home owners, too.
With Gavriel Nehushtan along for the ride, Othniel followed his directions to the new neighborhood, where they loaded the material
s into the car. They saw a small dog, with a second row of teeth on his bottom jaw and a cross-eyed stare, but bright and friendly nevertheless, and Othniel said, “Whoever preserves a single soul of Israel is said to have preserved an entire world, God giveth and God taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” They took him, and he was named Beilin, a stepbrother for Condoleezza, who had turned up a year earlier from Ma’aleh Hermesh A. Beilin grew, and grew stronger, and he tied his soul to the soul of the Assis family and became one of its children, and soon it was as though he’d been there all along.
The Word
Captain Omer Levkovich woke to the beeping of the alarm on his phone in his tiny Jerusalem apartment at 5:45. Early. The headache came on moments before his recollection of the previous night—too much beer, a short-haired girl, a student at Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus, studying something strange that he couldn’t recall, and he had consumed beer and talked about the ex who’d dumped him. When they left the bar, the student declined his invitation to come over and look at photo albums.
After a shower, he fixed his light hair with his fingers in the mirror. His gray-green eyes were shot with red streaks of weariness. He made himself a coffee in a thermal mug, got into his jeep and drove to the base, collected his crew, and headed to Ma’aleh Hermesh. The Situation Room was already abuzz with activity, he heard on the radio. Yoni was waiting at the outpost, having been summoned back for duty on Saturday evening the moment the minister’s visit was approved. Yoni got into the jeep and they went for a drive.
“What’s that all about?” Omer pointed at the sight of the people walking silently along the ring road at the early hour.
“Morning prayers,” Yoni answered.
“But so many? They always struggle to get a minyan together,” said Omer.
“Lots of visitors,” Yoni explained in a slow, scratchy voice.
The motorcade began arriving a little after nine. The defense minister’s adviser on settlement affairs had shown his boss newspaper headlines that spoke loudly of the minister’s “capitulation” to the U.S. president, and op-eds scoffing at his efforts “to suck up to” and “curry favor with” the U.S. administration. Up in front, in a command car bedecked with antennas that climbed the narrow and steep road to the hilltop, sat Giora, the head of Central Command. Toward the back, behind several other security vehicles, appeared the long silver car of the American ambassador in Israel, Milton White. And bringing up the rear, behind the security vehicle that followed the ambassador’s car, came a beaten-down and dusty line of vehicles covered with stickers from the corresponding end of the political spectrum.
Standing on a mound of dirt, his arms folded across his chest, Roni followed the convoy’s progress. Perhaps due to his position, elevated above the crowd, coupled with the defense minister’s constant need to demonstrate conviction, Roni attracted the attention of the minister, who exited his vehicle with his familiar sense of urgency, stretched out his hand, and firmly grasped and shook Roni’s, to the clicking of the photographers’ cameras. But the moment Roni said, “What’s up, bro?” the minister realized he had erred—not only in his choice of target for the handshake, but also in his estimation of the heat outside the air-conditioned car. He was dressed in a jacket and tie, and to remove them now would appear hasty—a surrender to the conditions, a capitulation. Beads of sweat covered his brow, his sunglasses abandoned somewhere in the car. His baseball cap would have been the ideal solution, but he had been instructed not to wear it at public events following the unfortunate photo op at Kibbutz Zikim last month.
Othniel Assis hurried over to welcome his friend Giora, the Central Command major general, who of course hadn’t forgotten his sunglasses, and who in turn quickly introduced the minister to the more typical settler. “I’m pleased you came here to show us, to show all the Jewish people and the American president in particular, that you are behind us and won’t lend a hand to the uprooting of settlement, minister, sir,” said Othniel, smiling as he held Shuv-el, who was clad in a white Sabbath shirt. Othniel knew what would look good in the papers. The minister smiled briefly at Othniel and, from the corner of his eye, glimpsed the lanky figure of Milton standing behind him. The ambassador was leaning in to ascertain whether the minister’s response to the settler corresponded with his promises to the administration. Regrettably, the minister spoke in Hebrew.
“Come, I’ll show you around,” Othniel said.
The minister looked around in an effort to locate his adviser on settlement affairs. The visit wasn’t going as planned. He didn’t feel in sufficient control of the way events were unfolding. A walk would only serve to intensify the heat and the sweat and the discomfort, and he hadn’t had a chance yet to relieve himself of his suit, not to mention the large circles of sweat that must have formed by then on his light blue shirt—he peered down as if to brush away a fly from his tie and noticed its light color—and removing his suit would surely involve a fair amount of embarrassment and yet another opportunity for the cynical photographers to go to town at his expense. He spotted his aide, Malka.
“Come here, Malka,” the minister said, and Malka turned away from a warm handshake with Othniel and an embrace with Elazar Freud (one year his senior at their pre-military service yeshiva) to confer with his boss. Othniel’s tour wasn’t going to happen.
“Malka, find me somewhere to say a few words and we’ll get the hell outta here. I’m drowning in sweat.” The ambassador approached, and the minister tried not to roll his eyes.
“Milton! Good to see you.” He smiled. “What’s got you out of bed so early on a Sunday morning?”
“Ha, ha,” Milton chuckled. “I guess my bosses really do believe it’s important.” The minister, his right hand still in the right hand of the ambassador, broke into a loud laugh and slapped the American’s shoulder with his free hand.
“Just look at him licking the Americans’ asses,” Neta Hirschson whispered into the ear closest to her.
“Disgusting,” agreed Jean-Marc, her husband.
Beyond them, the Central Command major general was in conversation with the sector’s company commander, Omer Levkovich, who then briefed the platoon of reinforcements.
Ambassador White, meanwhile, was asked by reporters what message he expected to hear from the defense minister that morning. “A message of peace, and of progress, within the framework of the law and the vital agreements reached between the countries in recent months,” he responded. The defense minister, his back to the ambassador and still speaking to Malka, heard the words and his body responded with another wave of perspiration. Everyone then walked the short distance from the synagogue, where the throng had formed, to the Mamelstein playground. The security guys led the way, followed by the aides of the dignitaries, the dignitaries themselves, the crowd, and the soldiers. Malka instructed the minister to stop alongside a yellow swing set. Ambassador White, Central Command Major General Giora, and the outpost’s longest-serving resident, Othniel, then lined up alongside him—click—that was the photograph that appeared the next day in the morning papers: bright, almost overexposed, the minister visibly uneasy and squinting his eyes against the high sun, the Central Command major general authoritative and sure of himself in sunglasses, a tall and content ambassador, and Othniel displaying the ease of a landowner. Close behind, but out of range of the cameras, stood the minister’s aide, Malka, and Omer Levkovich. Jehu and Killer trotted jauntily back and forth along the edge of the park, and one of the bodyguards kept a constant eye on them.
“Good evening, everyone, excuse me, good morning,” the minister began. Sporadic laughter rang out.
“Shame on you!” shouted Neta Hirschson. “Coming here as the emissary of the American president—”
“Shhh . . . Let him speak,” someone said. Two soldiers approached Neta.
“I’m not here as the emissary of any president, please hear me out and be patient—”
“Patient? How can you expect us to be patient when y
ou’re selling out the country to foreigners and screwing us over?”
“Excuse me, madam, you focus on abiding by the law and the Americans won’t make any demands on us.” He diverted his gaze away from Neta Hirschson to a nonspecific point above her, beyond her, catching sight of the white desert hills, the crevices of the Hermesh Stream riverbed. “It’s beautiful here,” he continued, almost in surprise, “and there’s no denying our rights here. But we must respect the law. Mistakes have been made, by the government of Israel, too. There are many legitimate settlements, but there are also some that have been established in places where they shouldn’t have been. What I’ve come here today to say . . .” He cast his eyes over the gathering. The sun had brought out large beads of sweat across his brow. The tie practically choked him. Malka handed him a bottle of water and he sipped from it. “. . . is that we are going to make a few adjustments. And these adjustments will come at a price—”
“How dare you?” Neta now yelled. “What adjustments? What price? What’s he talking about?”
“Madam, allow me to finish.”
“Let go of me!” the cosmetician shouted at the soldiers now holding her by the arms. Her husband, Jean-Marc, screamed at them in French, mentioning the Holocaust.
“Guys, guys, let her—” the minister tried, turning to look at the major general. “Giora . . . Madam, allow me to finish. There’ll be adjustments, there’ll be a price to pay, but the government of Israel won’t stop supporting—” His address was then interrupted by the intensely loud barking of a large, angry sand-colored dog.
“Beilin! Quiet, Beilin,” Gitit shouted in an effort to silence the dog. “Beilin! Beilin!” The defense minister, his eyebrows scrunched up, looked at her, and then, unable to restrain himself, a half-smile appeared on his lips.