Herman Wouk - The Glory

by The Glory(Lit)

  "Come right up."

  Avi Shammai was a big stout blond man, in a striped short-sleeved shirt, brown pants, and sandals on bare feet. "It's no problem," he said. "We run into this all the time."

  "How can you help me?"

  Avi Shammai's English was rapid but cloudy. His proposal involved temporarily transferring ownership of the Porsche to the Shammai Brothers, who would take it to Cyprus, adjust the odometer to show more mileage, perform other alterations, and bring it back in as a secondhand car. Something like that. Barkowe found him hard to follow, but through the verbiage three points gradually became clear. First, it was no problem; second, the cost would be five thousand American dollars; third, Barkowe would pay twenty-five hundred dollars now, the balance when Shammai Brothers delivered him the car.

  "When will that be?"

  "In a month, guaranteed."

  "What's your phone number?"

  "Mr. Barkowe, Shammai Brothers is a busy firm. I've brought all the necessary documents-"

  "Just your number, please." Barkowe pulled from his pocket the card the Israeli had given him on the ferry. "Write it on here."

  Shammai took the card and glanced at it. With a strange expression mingling amazement and horror he said, "You know Guli?"

  "Who?"

  The agent extended the card, printed all in Hebrew except for two words, Avram Gulinkoff. "Him. Where did you get this card?"

  None of this fellow's business, Barkowe thought. "Oh, friend of my father's. Why?"

  Avi Shammai dropped the card on the breakfast table and hurried out, his sandals loudly flapping. Barkowe was puzzling over this bizarre turn when the phone rang again. Another helpful agent? Was his predicament the talk of Haifa?

  "Dzeck Barkowe?" A girl's voice, peppy and sweet.

  "I'm Jack Barkowe. Who is this?"

  "My name's Daphna Luria. I'm Noah Barak's friend, and I'm here in the lobby. You're having problems with the Mekhess?"

  "I'll be right down. Tan jacket."

  "I'll find you, Dzecki."

  Barkowe had never liked the familiar "Jackie." It was his custom to growl, "The name's Jack," when people used it. But Dzecki, as this girl said it, sounded sort of piquant.

  The elevator door opened on pandemonium. From big snorting busses tourists were pouring into the hotel, and more tourists were pouring out into other enormous busses spouting black fumes. The lobby was festooned with banners -

  KING DAVID TOURS, HOLY LAND TOURS, SCHEINBAUM TOURS,

  paradise tours - under which mountains of luggage rose. Shouldering through the tumultuous lobby, looking for someone who might be Daphna, Barkowe heard a babble of tongues, English predominating. A tap on his shoulder. "Here I am, Dzecki." She was a smallish girl in a beige uniform,

  with heavy blond hair on which perched a little black cap. Her bosom was marked, her figure slender, her eyes lively and amused. A dish, at first glance. "Do we talk Hebrew or English?" she inquired.

  "N'nasseh Ivrit," he said. ("Let's try Hebrew.")

  "Ah. Very good. Noah thinks," she said, as they pushed toward the lobby entrance, "that maybe I can help you. He can't leave the ship until tomorrow, when the Mekhess will be closed." She glanced pertly at him. "Shabbat. Understand?"

  "Every word."

  "Lovely."

  Soon they were riding in a small slanted subwaylike car going down a steep tunnel. "This is the Carmelit," she said. "Don't waste your money on taxis while you're at the Dan. We can walk from the bottom to the Mekhess."

  They did, and found the huge shed vacant and quiet; no cars, no inspectors, all windows but one closed. "There's my car," he said.

  "Which one?"

  "The blue one."

  The Porsche gleamed among the shoddy impounded cars like a sapphire dropped in dirt. Daphna widened amazed eyes at him, bluer than the Porsche. "That's your car, Dzecki? What are you, a millionaire's son?"

  He laughed. "I'm broke. It's a story."

  At the open window, Barkowe handed his documents through the grill to a bald man with very big yellow false teeth. "Ah yes, the Porsche. Interesting case," said the man in passable English, his teeth clicking. "But the boat to Italy has left."

  Daphna entered into a vigorous dispute which Barkowe could not follow at all, the teeth behind the grill clicking like castanets. "Well, you have a real problem," she said at last to Barkowe. "Let's go to the supervisor. This man isn't a bad person, he feels sorry for you."

  "Sure. Ani mitzta'er."

  A glint of humor flashed in her sharp blue eyes. "Just so. Ani mitzta'er. You'll hear that a lot in Israel."

  The paunchy supervisor had a large sad face and sat in a very small office, behind a desk piled high with scruffy folders. He nodded often at the pretty soldier as she rattled on, regarding her with benign melancholy appetite.

  "You understand Hebrew?" he asked Barkowe in a hoarse rumble.

  "Not the way she's talking now."

  The supervisor almost smiled, and spoke slowly. "Sir, in strict confidence, by January your car will undoubtedly be admissible. A former high Treasury official plans to import this model, you see."

  "January? I'm paying twenty dollars a day storage. Can't I post a bond meantime and use it?"

  "No, no. Unheard of. Twenty dollars a day is a problem, I grant you. The next boat for Italy leaves Monday." At the look on the American's face he shrugged. "Ani mitzta'er."

  As they left the shed Daphna said, "I've been useless to you."

  "Far from it. Thanks a lot, now I know where I stand. I'm going to Tel Aviv and break down all doors in the American Embassy."

  "Good for you." With a beautiful smile Daphna Luria held out her hand. "I think you'll survive here, Dzecki." She strode off to a bus stop, and looking after her, he thought he had seldom seen a more seductive swaying walk. Lucky Cousin Noah! There had to be other Israeli girls like Daphna Luria, and at that, he might yet try the tomb of Maimonides. Back in his room the breakfast table had not yet been removed, and there lay the card of Avram Gulinkoff. What could he lose? He asked the hotel operator to get him the phone number.

  "Guli speaking," said the hoarse voice brusquely. "Who's this?"

  "Mr. Gulinkoff, this is Jack Barkowe."

  "What? Who?"

  "The American on the ferry."

  A peculiar sound, half a growl and half a chuckle. "Oh, yes, Yaakov. Shalom. What can I do for you, Yaakov?"

  In dirty fatigues and a dirtier floppy cap, her hands and face black-smeared, Daphna was hurrying to the gate of the Ramat David air force base a few days later. A note had been handed to her: Sergeant Luria - Unauthorized civilian at pate inquiring for you. Has no pass. Outside the guard hut, a cluster of guards and off-duty soldiers all but hid the blue Porsche. Astounded, she pushed through. "Dzecki! By my life, how did you get it out?"

  He stood by the car, tipping his red driver's cap. "Hi, Daphna, care for a spin?"

  "You fool, I can't leave the base."

  "Just joking. I'm on my way to the Golan Heights. I thought I'd let you know I've got my car, and thank you for your help at the Mekhess."

  "Me? I did nothing. Who liberated it, the American ambassador?"

  "You're not even close."

  The enlisted men who surrounded them were all grinning. The visit would be the talk of the base, she knew. She was a marked girl at Ramat David, for her father, Colonel Benny Luria, had led a squadron of Mirages in the surprise air strike on Egypt, which - at least in air force opinion - had won the Six-Day War in the first seven minutes. "Well, nice seeing you, but I can't stay, I'm on duty."

  "Right." He jumped into the Porsche and started it up with a rich purr.

  "My God," she couldn't help saying, "how I'd love to drive that car."

  "Anytime, Daphna." He tipped the cap and roared off.

  He was soaking in a hot tub the following night, stiff and aching from ten hours of driving around the Negev, and from a bone-jolting ride on a camel at a Bedouin market outside Beersheba. R-r-ring
went the phone by the tub. "Dzecki? It's Daphna Luria. I'm calling from my base."

  "Daphna, hi. What's up?"

  "Have you been to Jericho or Hebron?"

  "No. I've driven all over, but not in the occupied territories. I'm too new here."

  "Sensible. Well, listen. I'm free on Friday, and it turns out that poor Noah can't meet me. His ship will have to relieve the Jaffa a day early, it's got engine trouble, and we're both furious. I asked him about showing you around the West Bank Friday and he said by all means to do it."

  "Great. What's involved, Daphna? Any risk?"

  "Nothing to it. The Arabs are behaving very well indeed,

  I assure you. They're in shock. We'll have no trouble at all. Be here at seven, and that'll give us a nice long day."

  "You're on."

  It was a cold windy cloudy morning, the sun a low dull red ball, when Daphna came out of the gate and waved. Dzecki this time saw not a sloppy mess in fatigues, but the fetching girl of the Dan lobby, with one difference. Swinging on a shoulder as before was her blue leather purse, but slung over the other was a submachine gun.

  "Shalom, Dzecki. We talk Hebrew, yes? Good practice for you." He jumped out and ran around to open the door for her. "Oo-ah, such a gentleman. How nice." She gestured at the gate guards, who were goggling at the Porsche and at them. "Those boors can't imagine what you're doing, or why. Probably never saw it happen before."

  "Daphna, what's with the Uzi?" He got behind the wheel and started the car.

  "Elohim, Dzecki, what a sound that engine makes! Like a tiger waking up. I'm signed out for the Uzi, and I'd better bring it back, or it's my head. Let's just get going."

  "Okay. Where to?"

  "Simple. Afula, Jenin, Nablus, Jericho. Straight run."

  "Fine. You direct me."

  "Now come on," she said as they started off, "however did you get this car out of the claws of the Mekhess?"

  "Well, it's a story." He described his meeting with Gulinkoff on the ferry, then had her giggling with an account of Avi Shammai's visit, and his strange reaction to the man's business card. "After you and I got nowhere, Daphna, I thought I'd just call the guy, a shot in the dark. He was real nice, this Guli. He said he was about to fly to Switzerland, but he'd be back soon and look into it. He sure did."

  "Oo-ah, such protectsia. Guli, you say? Noah must know him. A real manipulator. You were lucky."

  "Was I ever! He called me a couple of days later and said, 'Go get your car, Yaakov.' That was that."

  "Yaakov? Why Yaakov? Where did he get that name?"

  As Dzecki explained she was smiling indulgently. "Don't be in such a hurry to change your name. Dzecki is nice. So! And the Mekhess simply let you drive it away?"

  "Right. Four days' storage fee, and a twenty-shekel fine

  for violating regulations. And when I think what the Sham-mai Brothers wanted of me -"

  "Good for you, Dzecki. Most Americans would have gone along with the Shammai Brothers."

  They were entering Afula, a dusty quiet town where children watched with open mouths as the Porsche went by. The one light at the center of town was green, and they turned right into a stream of vehicles, mainly trucks of crated fruit and vegetables, and army lorries carrying bored or sleeping soldiers. Beyond Afula, on a two-lane asphalt road through green-brown farmland, the traffic gradually thinned. He explained as they drove how his grandmother Lydia, a lifelong Hadassah lady, had gone into ecstasies over his making aliya, and had presented him with his choice of cars.

  "L'Azazel, I wish I had such a grandmother. How fast can this car go, Dzecki?"

  "On the autostradas I've done a hundred miles an hour. But here-"

  "Oo-ah, a hundred sixty kilometers! Shiga'on! [Crazy, marvellous!]"

  "Daphna, I'm playing it safe here. Ninety is the limit, so I crawl at ninety."

  "Oh, go a hundred ten, Dzecki. It's all right."

  The car darted ahead and she leaned back, crossing her arms and sighing with contentment. "Ah-h-h! Both my grandmothers live on a moshav. Nahalal, actually Moshe Dayan's moshav. Never left. That's where both my parents were born, grew up, and got married. Moshavniks can't give away Porsches. By the way, Dzecki, we're just crossing over the Green Line."

  "We are?" He glanced around in bewilderment. "Here? You mean we're entering the West Bank? It all looks the same."

  Daphna uttered a hearty charming laugh, showing fine white teeth. "By my life, this is an experience, riding with you. Of course it's the same, what did you think? That it would be a different color, like on a map? It's all just Palestine."

  "But no fence, no sign, nothing?"

  "What for? The Green Line wasn't real. Nothing but a mark on a map. When Jordan attacked us in the Six-Day War,

  poof, end of Green Line. Gone." She laid a hand on his arm. "Say, when do I get to drive? You promised."

  "Nothing doing. I've read the law. They'll confiscate my car if you're caught driving it."

  "Read the law again. If you're in the car with me, no problem."

  "You're sure? Say, it gets prettier and prettier out here, doesn't it?" He was glancing at a little Arab village snugged up on a rocky slope. "Real Bible scenery."

  "Oh, the West Bank's lovely. We call it Judah and Samaria, the Bible names. Listen, Dzecki, the first big town we get to is Nablus. From there let me drive to Jericho, all right?"

  "We'll see."

  Nablus was a hilly town, wholly Arab in architecture and in populace. In the noisy central plaza amid food stalls and small open shops, half a dozen empty busses were lined up, and groups of sightseers were strolling about, shepherded by guides. Some Arab children stared silently at the Porsche, but the white-robed men in kaffiyehs and the bigger boys on foot or on braying little donkeys utterly ignored it, as they ignored the thronging tourists.

  "Lock the car, of course," she said to Dzecki, as he parked in the plaza and they got out. Dzecki could hear the Israeli guides mostly talking English, with here and there some patter in French or German.

  "Say, about that gun, Daphna."

  "Yes, what about it?"

  "Couldn't one of these Arabs grab it and make trouble?"

  "You think so? Try to take it from me, Dzecki." He smiled skeptically. "Go ahead, I mean it, just try."

  He made a quick sudden move at her, and even more quickly she unslung the Uzi and the muzzle was against his stomach. "See? Don't worry, we're trained. Anyway, look there." In a patrol jeep nearby, five soldiers in black berets sat surveying the scene through dark glasses, guns at the ready. "The Arabs have learned their lesson, believe me, for good and all. These tourists are as safe as they would be in London. Let's look around a bit, and drive on. Jericho's nicer."

  He sniffed the air. "Exciting smells! Strange spices, strange foods, and-"

  "And donkey dung, not so strange."

  He laughed. "Popular sightseeing spot, for sure."

  "Well, Nablus is really Shechem, you know. Very important in Bible history. Right there," she indicated a mountain looming over the town, "is Har Gerizim, where the Samaritans still worship."

  As they walked down a main street a tall Arab boy in a shirt and slacks, with a broad tray of fragrant fresh flat breads on his head, passed by them and went into a gloomy alley of tumbledown stone houses. "My God, those smell marvelous," Dzecki said. "I'm starved. I'm going to buy one. For you, too?"

  "No thanks, but listen, Dzecki-"

  He started after the boy into the alley, which was full of Arab men and boys sitting around on stone steps. Behind him he heard harsh shouting, and over his shoulder he saw a lean gun-toting soldier running toward Daphna, berating her in rapid-fire Hebrew. She was answering back angrily. "Dzecki, get out of there," she called, and went on arguing with the soldier. Dzecki hastily backed out of the alley, and the soldier walked off muttering.

  "That place is off limits for tourists," Daphna explained. "Not that anything would happen, but still - oh, come on, let's run down to Jericho. There's lots o
f good places to eat. Please, please let me drive. Look, I've brought my license. See?"

  The appeal in the big eyes was not to be resisted, not by Dzecki. "Well, sure."

  When she got behind the wheel of the Porsche, her face lit up like a child's. "Yes, yes, I understand, I see, I see," she kept saying as he explained the controls. "No problem, no problem. I'm ready to go, let's move."

  "All yours," he said. "On to Jericho."