The Six-Day Hero (Israel)

by Tammar Stein

  I don’t know what to say. Yossi has been my best friend since we started school in first grade.

  “I can’t believe you’re really leaving,” I say.

  “I can’t believe it either,” he says, his misery showing.

  “Maybe you can stay with us,” I offer. “You can have Gideon’s bed, he’s always at the base.” For a moment I can picture it: Yossi moving in with us, Yossi at the table eating dinner with us.

  But he shakes his head. “I have to stay with my mom,” he says softly. “She’s all alone, you know. I’m the only one she’s got left.”

  Of course. I know that.

  “So go,” I say, half-shrugging. “I’ll write you a letter and tell you what you missed.”

  “Motti,” he says helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

  I can’t stand this. I grab him in a rough hug. He wraps his arms around me in return. He smells like cumin and soap. I shut my eyes, breathing heavily through my nose. Then I push us apart and take off, running for home.

  Chapter Eight

  Drills

  When I get home, my mom is in the living room holding a pair of sharp shears. There’s a tangle of cloth at her feet. She looks up in surprise when I walk in.

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask at the same time.

  “Oh,” she says. She looks at the pile at her feet as though surprised. “The radio said we should tape up the windows.”

  “Why?”

  “If there’s any bombing, the explosions will shatter the glass. If we tape them, then the glass will stick to the tape and just fall down. Otherwise, fragments could get blown in.”

  “Why the sheets?”

  She smiles faintly. “An old trick I learned in ’48. We don’t have enough tape for the windows.” I nod. I picture the small roll of clear tape we use for wrapping presents. Hard to imagine it doing much for us. “I’ll cut the old sheets into strips. Then I’ll dip them in flour and water and paste that to the windows.” Her tone is reasonable and calm. Just a small lesson in physics and home economics.

  Suddenly, a piercing siren screeches. I clap my hands over my ears, my heart racing.

  “Has it started?” I shout. “Are we at war?”

  My mom hurriedly sets down the sharp scissors. She glances at the clock on the wall.

  “It’s just a drill,” she says quickly. “They announced it on the radio. Come on.” She reaches for my hand. “Let’s go to the shelter.”

  The younger boys playing outside rush back into the building, herded by Ofra Geffen. Some older buildings have to use a public shelter, but ours has a dedicated shelter in the basement. My mom yanks open the heavy metal doors, and we all tumble down a short flight of stairs and into the cement-walled shelter.

  The shelter is dimly lit by a single naked bulb. It’s cool and musty-smelling. In the corner, someone has piled boxes of supplies: bottled water, candy bars, dried fruit. There are candles and matches. A couple of covered buckets in case we’re stuck long enough to need the bathroom.

  Five minutes after we enter the shelter, the all-clear siren blares.

  We walk out into the bright, warm sunshine. I look at my neighbors, blinking like owls in the sun. Only women, children, and old men. All the fathers and older brothers have gone to defend us. At moments like this, it all seems unreal. Is war really coming? Will bombs really fall on my street? I shiver, knowing that, ready or not, all that and more is coming our way.

  * * *

  Two nights later, Gideon surprises us, showing up in the middle of dinner.

  “They let you come home?” my mom exclaims. She pushes back her chair from the table so hard that it topples over with a crash. She runs to him and pulls him down for a hard embrace.

  “Shalom, Ima,” Gideon says, half-laughing as he pats her back. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”

  “Come,” she says. “Sit. Did you eat? Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” he says. “They drill us so much, there’s barely time to eat.”

  But he hasn’t lost weight. He’s tanned and looks fit. Having him at the table feels so wonderful, we’re all chipper. Beni perks up and starts telling Gideon all about the crazy things the students and teachers found in his school’s bomb shelter. Part of the school’s shelter is the gymnasium, but for the last ten years, the back of it was used as a storage unit. Now that it needs to be a shelter again, they’re clearing it out. Besides the usual old desks, water-stained textbooks, and broken musical instruments, a few teachers unearthed a food cache from before the 1948 War of Independence: crumbly old crackers, moldy dried beans, and bottled olive oil that went rancid long ago. Someone back then must have hidden the food before the war in case of shortages, like squirrels burying acorns, and then they forgot all about it.

  It reminds me of how our little country has never been far from violence. These growing tensions are nothing new.

  Gideon laughs. “And how’s your tummy?” he asks Beni. “The guys keep teasing me about my brother with the runs.”

  Beni turns beet red.

  “It wasn’t like that—” he protests.

  “Dorit has a crush on you,” I say, to draw the attention off poor Beni. Plus, I really don’t want my mom asking too many questions about what we did on base.

  “Who’s Dorit?” my mom asks, eyebrow raised.

  Beni doesn’t waste the opportunity. “Gideon has a giiiiirrrrrllllfriend,” he sings.

  Now Gideon’s the one who’s blushing. I sit back in satisfaction. I knew that would do the trick.

  “Relax,” Gideon says, more to my mom than to Beni. “Dorit’s a sweetheart, but we’re not dating.”

  My mom wiggles in her seat a bit. She loves to find out about Gideon’s love life. Gideon’s dated girls, but he hasn’t had a serious girlfriend since he graduated high school.

  “Nu, tell me a bit about her. Where is she from? Do I know her parents?”

  Gideon rolls his eyes, and I laugh out loud. Gideon gives me a look, threatening retribution.

  “Ima, I promise you,” he says, “if I’m serious about someone, you’ll be the first to know. But there’s nothing there.” He glares at me. I grin back. Everything about tonight feels so wonderful. Only my dad’s empty chair at the table reminds me that it’s not quite perfect.

  Then, a miracle. Our apartment door opens again, and my dad walks in.

  “Abba!” Beni screams and tears off toward him. My dad isn’t even two steps into our home before Beni launches himself into his arms. My dad has fast reflexes, though. He grabs Beni and throws him in the air, as if Beni were three instead of six. Beni squeals with delight. Then my dad hugs him tightly and Beni buries his face in the crook of my dad’s neck.

  We all return to the table for a third time. There’s still plenty of food, and we nibble second and third helpings as my dad fills his plate.

  My dad’s base is full of Jerusalem residents, and he knows half of them from his time in the military or from neighborhood interactions.

  “Yakov Sitrin is in my platoon,” he tells us around a mouthful of bread.

  Yakov Sitrin is our mailman. A short, slim man, he always whistles as he pulls the handcart full of letters to deliver. I have a sudden, hilarious vision of him whistling and pulling a cannon behind him.

  “Does he deliver everyone’s mail on the base?” Beni asks.

  With mailmen from all over the city serving in the military, high-school students have volunteered to deliver the mail. So many teens stepped forward that for the past week, we’ve received mail twice a day.

  “No,” my dad says. “He helps us hand out supplies and keep track of the inventory, like everyone else in the unit.”

  I can easily picture my dad repairing and cleaning his weapon, helping out under the hood if a jeep breaks down. I have a harder time imagining him charging up a hill, firing his weapon, destroying instead of creating. Fortunately, his army job isn’t a combat position.

 
“All this waiting is driving me crazy,” Gideon says. “All we do is wait. The entire country is mobilized, and the politicians waste our one advantage.”

  “It’s not that easy,” my dad answers him carefully. “Young men rush into war, old men think about it a thousand times.”

  “We’re going to war, Abba,” Gideon says. “No one can doubt that. And if we don’t strike first, we’ll bleed a lot more.”

  After dinner, we all take an evening stroll. We cross King David Street and ride the elevator to the top of the YMCA Tower, the tallest structure in West Jerusalem. From the observatory deck we can see the golden half-egg top of the Dome of the Rock, the walls of the Old City, and the headlights of Jordanian cars driving on the streets just beyond the barbed wires of the border. Unlike Israeli West Jerusalem, they are not under a blackout. As twilight falls, our city doesn’t light up like usual. Cars have painted their headlights dark blue, leaving only a thin strip clear for a bit of light. Windows are covered with thick shades, and the streetlights don’t flicker on.

  But though East Jerusalem is lit, the Western Wall remains unseen. Hidden behind the buildings of the Old City, we can only guess where it is from the few stones of the top rows. It is so close, yet impossibly far. Gideon grips the metal fence that runs along the observatory deck and stares at the Old City. A fierce look of longing crosses his face. A soft evening breeze tickles my hair. For some reason, I shiver, goose bumps rising on my arms.

  After a few moments, Beni loses interest in the view. “Can we have ice cream?” he begs. It would be a real treat for my parents to buy us some.

  “Yeah!” I second. “Please?”

  My parents exchange amused glances. We all know this is a special night. “Ooo-wah,” my dad says. “This is turning into a wild evening.” Beni and I grin, and even Gideon smiles.

  The four of us stroll to the local ice-cream parlor, debating if our favorite flavors will be there. A few days ago my mom was assigned ration cards for staples like sugar and oil. It’s so that people can’t stock up on supplies and cause shortages for everyone else. We are the only customers at the ice-cream shop. They have all four flavors that they usually carry. We each order a different flavor, and everyone shares. Whether it’s because of low demand or because the rationing works, I’m just glad that the shop has enough ingredients for its ice cream.

  Once we get home, Beni falls asleep quickly. My parents hole up in the kitchen, feverishly talking in low voices.

  Gideon and I sit on the couch by the radio.

  The living room windows are open to catch the night breeze. The soft sounds of crickets and far-away cars drift in and keep us company. I feel very grown-up, staying up to chat with my brother—and at the same time, all the stress and fear of the past three weeks finally have some place to go.

  “Yossi left,” I tell him. “He and his mom are sailing to Morocco.”

  Gideon shakes his head. “I never did like that kid,” he says.

  “But what if his mom’s right?” I say, hardly believing that I’m saying this out loud. “What if this is the next Holocaust? What if Arabs come and kill everyone? They keep saying that on the radio.”

  “Motti, we will win because we must,” Gideon says fiercely. “The Egyptians fight for pride, for glory. The Syrians fight because they hate us. If they lose, so what? They can always try again. But us?” He taps his chest. “We fight for our families, our homes. We don’t have another choice. Which is why we will win.” He leans forward, putting an arm around my shoulders and pulling me toward him so we’re nose to nose, eye to eye. “The soldiers fighting with me—you’ve never seen such patriots,” he says. “Tough and smart. Real warriors.”

  The tight bands of panic around my chest slowly loosen. I understand what my brother is saying. He’s saying they’re like him. That we have brigades full of Gideons ready to do everything in their power to protect our homeland.

  “No one wants war,” he says. “But morale is so high on the base, Motti. Because if it comes to war, we know we will win.”

  I want to say, Do you promise? But I hold myself back. It isn’t fair to ask him something like that. No one can promise me we’ll win. Instead, I say, “Okay. How will we win?”

  Gideon leans back, crossing an ankle over his knee.

  “A long time ago, this army colonel, Chaim Laskou, figured out the five precepts—five laws, basically—of all Israeli wars. These things will always be true. One.” He holds up a finger. “We will always be outnumbered. Two.” Another finger. “We will never be able to keep a huge standing army, and we can never afford huge personnel losses. Three. We will always fight for our survival. If we lose, there won’t be some treaty or cease-fire—there will just be no Israel. Four. We’re a tiny country, 140 kilometers at our widest point, 15 kilometers at our narrowest. The Arab countries have the high ground. We don’t have any big rivers or mountains to slow their attacks.”

  I know all this, and I’m not sure how hearing it is supposed to make me feel better.

  “Where’s the part where you tell me how we’re going to win?” I demand.

  He holds up the last finger, showing me his whole wide palm before he bunches it into a massive fist. “Five. Because of these other factors, our wars must always be aggressive, fierce, and short.” He smacks that fist into his open palm. I jump at the sound. “The problem so far has been that the world doesn’t want to see us start the war. They don’t want us firing the first shot. But a sudden, aggressive offense is our best defense. We’ve spent years getting ready for this, Motti. The Arabs are too busy practicing their victory parades to actually prepare for war.”

  My brother rises from the couch, and I follow.

  “It’s late,” he says, stretching his arms over his head. I can hear his back popping as it aligns. “I have to be back at the base by seven tomorrow.”

  “I told Yossi he could come live with us,” I tell him. “If he had accepted, he would have taken your bed.”

  Gideon snorts. “Thanks a lot, little brother. Already replacing me, eh?”

  I shrug a shoulder. “It was worth a shot.”

  He shakes his head ruefully. I watch him head to the back bedroom.

  “I’m kidding,” I say, suddenly uneasy to joke about this. “You know that, right?”

  Gideon turns, his brown eyes meeting mine.

  “It’ll be okay, Motti,” he says kindly, answering my deepest, unvoiced fear. “We’ll be fine.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Queen of Sheba

  In the morning Gideon and my dad return to their bases. My parents embrace in the hallway. My mom stands at our door, looking forlorn, as my dad and brother disappear down the cool, dark stairwell. Then she takes a deep breath and straightens her back, her chin tipping up. By the time she turns to come back into our apartment, she’s composed.

  “All right, boys,” she says, clapping her hands at us like we’re ducks dilly-dallying on the path. “Get your shoes on, brush your teeth, pack your books. School starts in twenty minutes.”

  My mom is a tough lady. She was twenty-three years old during the 1948 War of Independence. Gideon had just been born. When he was three days old, the clinic where he was born was shelled. My mom had been there, recovering from the labor, but suddenly she had to move. She grabbed her new baby and fled into the streets, barefoot. My dad was fighting the Jordanians in Jerusalem. My grandparents’ apartment was too far away for her to run there.

  When my mom tells us the story, she makes it sound like a crazy adventure. Wearing only a nightgown, she ran into an abandoned warehouse and wedged herself in a corner. She sang lullabies to Gideon, rocking him and kissing his little face. He slept through the whole thing, utterly unperturbed by the explosions that shook the ground or the shots ringing out in the streets.

  I used to find that so hilarious, that baby Gideon slept through a war.

  On my way to school, I pass a large dump truck. I stop to watch as it opens its rear door and a mass of sand
pours out. Two men hop out of the front cab and drop a pile of empty bags next to the sand. Then they hop back in the truck and roar away.

  A milling group of men with shovels—men from the Civil Defense, men who are too old to be called up to active duty—start filling the empty sacks with sand.

  One of them notices me watching.

  “There’s no points for spectators, boy,” he says roughly. “Grab a scoop and start filling.”

  School starts in a few minutes, but I suddenly get the feeling that I won’t be making it in today. Between Morah Pnina teaching eighty kids and Yossi heading to the port in Haifa to catch the ship to Morocco, no one will even notice I’m not there. So I grab an empty bag and start filling it. I tie it off and drop it on the growing pile.

  Once we have a mound of sandbags, the men get organized in a line leading from the pile to the entryway of the nearest apartment building. I take my place in the line. We pass each bag from person to person, making a chain across the street. The sandbags are laid in rows along the windows and the entryway, making a small wall of blast protection.

  When we’ve used all the sand the dump truck dropped off, some of the men stay to dig a trench. I follow the others as we walk toward the next sand drop site to fill more bags.

  People come out of their apartments. Mothers and grandmothers, little children. Other kids skipping school like me. At the next dump site, a few of us climb to the top of the mound, a mini-mountain. I get a brilliant idea.

  “Watch this!” I call. I take two running steps and launch myself off the edge of the hill. I land on my bottom and slide the rest of the way down, whooping the whole way.

  “Me next!” calls another boy and does the same thing.

  The adults stop to watch our antics.

  “Enough!” calls an older lady. She’s wearing a kerchief on her hair and a long skirt to her calves. Orthodox. “You’re making a mess of the sand. Start helping out, not making more work.”

  The boys and I exchange sheepish looks. For a moment, I almost forgot why we were here. It feels nice to have everyone out, in each other’s business, working together.