"Well, too bad there was no TV crew on the Eilat. The Americans know our ship was sunk, with big loss of life."
"They've forgotten already. Anyway, what kind of surprise attack is this? Major oil refineries within artillery range, civilians already evacuated? Zero shock. Nothing. Only shock can keep the Arabs off balance, Abba, and if Nasser calculated reprisal targets before he sank the Eilat, this had to be number one."
A white command car, with the blue letters UN painted on each side, was coming down the dirt road from the canal, raising a long dust plume. "Well, well," said Sam Pasternak, "the umpires are arriving to stop the fun and try to fix blame for who started it. Ha! There are no umpires at sea." He glanced at his wristwatch, and waved to his driver in a jeep nearby. "Let's get back to Refidim. A helicopter will be meeting me at twelve o'clock, I have to report to the Prime Minister."
"Great. I'm dying to surprise my girlfriend." "Dvora? Is she still modelling for Yael Nitzan?" "I assume so. I haven't heard from her. We had a tiff before I left." "What about?"
"She wanted to come with me to Stanford." His father grunted and was silent. After some minutes of bumping along the unpaved track in a whirl of dust, Sam Pasternak said, "For three reasons, Amos, that bombardment is no mistake. First of all, the Egyptians surprised us, we didn't estimate they'd dare such escalation, and politically something had to be done fast to shut off the Arab rejoicing. Not the Egyptians, they were pretty quiet, but the other countries were calling the Eilat sinking 'Israel's Pearl Harbor.' Second, our press and people were yelling for action. Third, our intelligence was that Nasser expected a reprisal in the Port Said area up north, so this was in fact a tactical surprise."
"Maybe, maybe. You know something?" Amos said. "California is the Garden of Eden, and this Sinai dust has the smell of Hell, and I'm glad I'm back."
Yael Luria, read the sign over the Tel Aviv shop in stark block letters, gold on white, for in business Don Kishote's wife used her maiden name. In the window were two ultra-fashionable dummies, skinny and faceless, one displaying a blue leather coat, the other a miniskirted green suit. Inside, noisy American shoppers wore first names pinned to their dresses - Marilyn, Connie, Isobel - on small wooden Hadassah medallions shaped like Tablets of the Law.
"Good God," Yael greeted Amos, stepping away from customers. "You! You went to Stanford, I heard." Amos had not seen Colonel Nitzan's wife in a long time.
She looked as American as her customers, lean, well-coiffed, dressed in beige leather. Amos did not know exactly what had gone on between Yael and his father long ago. It wasn't talked about in the family, and he had heard only gossip, but whatever it was, he could understand it. "Well, I'm back. Dvora's here?"
"Dvora? Yes, she's with some rich Brit ladies in a private room" - Yael dropped her voice and looked oddly uncomfortable - "modelling lingerie. Will you wait in my office?"
"Why not? Congratulations on Kishote's Medal of Valor. How is he?"
"From the little I see of him, fine. He's up north now, he's Dado's chief of operations." She showed Amos into a cubicle decorated with French fashion posters, where a lean curly-headed boy was writing in a copybook at the desk. "And this is our son. Aryeh, this is Major Pasternak, a valiant warrior. I'll tell Dvora you're here."
The boy peered at Amos's tank corps emblem, and at the beret strapped on his shoulder. "If you're in tanks, why do you have a red beret?"
Sharp kid, this. "I'm qualified both as a tankist and paratrooper, Aryeh."
"But which are you?"
"Well, that's a story."
"Tell it to me."
Amos sat down in a wicker chair. "What are you doing?"
"English homework. My father is in the tank corps."
"I know. Colonel Nitzan is a famous tank commander."
Aryeh's face lit up. He had Yael's blue-gray eyes and snub nose, and with his thick blond curls he was pretty as a girl. He read from his open book in stumbling English.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time...
"Zeh nifla, lo?" ("That's wonderful, isn't it?") "You think so? You have good taste." "What do you really do in the army?" "Special things." "What things?
"You have to be clever and strong to do them. Maybe you will one day, Aryeh. Do you know what 'elite' means?"
"Sure. The chosen. The best. That's what I'll be."
"Then get back to your homework. First elite rule is, whatever you're doing, do it with all your might." The boy saluted, bent over his notebook, and resumed careful writing.
Amos sat drumming his fingers on the wicker. Three months was a long time to be without a girlfriend, and he had not found one at Stanford. He had met Dvora when she was finishing her draft service in the armor corps, and for a year they had shared a flat in Ramat Gan for weekends of shattering lovemaking. She had been given to kvetching - so Amos had dismissed her persistent protests - about this sporadic arrangement. She had wanted something more committed and positive, if not yet binding. Amos didn't. She was beautiful and sweet, but uneducated and lightweight, and as a companion for an academic year at Stanford University, all wrong. So he had judged, and he had been tough about it, resisting her cajoling, her tears and her threats. Now he had to make it up to her. He was thinking over an affectionate approach when here she came in a red bathrobe, her face all painted up for modelling, her lovely brown ringlets exquisitely arranged. "So you're back."
"Dyora!"
He jumped up with open arms. She threw a glance toward the boy and beckoned to Amos. He followed her into a small multimirrored dressing room, where she shut the door and stood with her back to it, hands behind her. "Didn't you get my letter?"
"What letter? I never heard from you."
"I wrote you a very long letter, Amos, back in September."
"It hadn't arrived by the time I left."
"What made you come back?"
"The Eilat news. I flew home as soon as I could."
"I see. So how was Stanford?"
"What was the letter about, motek [sweet]?" She was acting strangely, a bit stunned, perhaps.
"Oh, what you would call kvetching, I guess." Amos decided to cut through this nonsense, and made to take her in his
arms, whereupon she whipped a hand from behind her back, and held it clenched under his nose. "About this, actually, if you want to know."
"L'Azazel!" The plain gold band was the very long letter in one stark fact. "You didn't really marry Ben, Dvora?"
"I said I would. I swore I would. You knew that." Her voice began to break, and her eyes to brim. "And I love Ben, and I'm happier than I ever thought I could be, and I'm two months pregnant. B'seder [Okay]? And I'll have to quit this job soon, and I don't care a bit, Ben makes a fine living with his filling station. So what can I do for you, Amos Pasternak?"
He took a moment to find his voice. "Just be happy, Dvora, that's all. Have a long happy life, and a wonderful family. Congratulations, and congratulate Ben for me, he's very lucky."
She choked out one word, "Hazzer [Swine]," and disappeared with a doorslam, leaving Amos looking at half a dozen nonplussed images of himself and thinking ruefully, Talk about reprisal! Threading through the Hadassah ladies, he left the shop and saw a new blue Porsche pull up at the curb, out of which jumped another romantic misfire of his, Daphna Luria.
"Amos Pasternak!" Sprightly tone, flirtatious smile. "Why aren't you in California?"
An Israeli query, that. He had not talked to Daphna Luria for nearly a year, and they moved in different circles, but here everyone tended to know everything about everybody else. Somewhat asphyxiating, at times. "Nice car," he said to the young driver as he got out, an American by his clothes, his haircut, and his callow look, not to mention the exotic automobile.
"This is Noah's cousin from New York," said Daphna. "Dzecki Barkowe. He's made aliya."
"He has? Kol ha'kavod," said Amos, perceiving the resemblance, but guessing that this fellow wa
s no Noah and would probably not last long here.
"Actually, Amos might be the one to talk to," she said to Dzecki, as the men shook hands.
"What about?" Amos inquired.
Dzecki said in clumsy slow Hebrew with New York inflections, "My draft service. I'm thinking maybe I should go in now, get the three years over with. A crash course in being an Israeli, you might say."
"A real question." Amos shrugged. "Just don't be hasty. Once in, you can't get out. Daphna, how's Noah?"
"He'll be all right, but he's still in much pain. We're going to visit him after I pick up a new dress. My aunt gives me big bargains."
"Bad business, the Eilat sinking," said the American. "But I'll bet the Egyptians will be plenty sorry." He trailed after Daphna, as she went into the shop with a farewell wave at Amos.
Why had they never clicked, he and Daphna? Unlike Dvora she was mighty bright, extremely well read, sure of herself, maybe a bit too aware that she was a Luria, a squadron leader's daughter, and very pretty, if no Dvora; also given to leftish antimilitary patter, which she considered smart and he thought an unserious nuisance. Whatever the reason, their few dates had fizzled. Noah Barak was welcome to Daphna Luria, since she fancied him. There was a real mentsch, Noah Barak. Noah had had rotten luck, but at least he was alive and recovering. Amos meant to visit him soon.
What now? He decided to telephone Sue Weinberg, a divorcee in Kfar Shmaryahu, who was sure to welcome him with joyous warmth, a superb meal, and a familiar bedroom. Three kids, no future there, but somehow he got along best with older women. Girls made problems.
MAIMONIDES HOSPITAL HAIFA
November 10th, 1967 Dear Abba:
You keep asking about Daphna Luria in your letters. Actually, she's been here several times. She couldn't be sweeter, and I could become serious about Daphna, but I doubt she's in that frame of mind. Not yet, anyhow. That dizzy relative of ours Jack Barkowe usually brings her here in his damned Porsche. She says he's just a pleasant kid, but she sure loves that Porsche. He let her drive it and the Mekhess nabbed it, but with protectsia he got it back. Was that your doing? As for the physical therapy, it's starting to work at last. My back pain is almost gone, except when I make sudden movements. I'll be out of here in a week, the doctor says. But then what?
Abba, I've spent a lot of time on my back, thinking about my future. If I do go on with a military career, I doubt it'll be in the navy. I'm disillusioned and disgusted. Yesterday we had a reunion of Eilat survivors in the hospital dining room, and the guys who weren't injured came and joined us. Strangely, it was uproarious. Everybody making jokes, insulting each other, even horseplay. Sheer joy of being alive and together again, we all felt it. Also shutting out our sadness about all the guys we lost. Anyway, it was something. The captain wasn't there. He's out of the hospital, but in terrible mental shape. So am I, Abba.
Do we even need a navy? It's a marginal branch at best, isn't it? That sense of being inferior, not crucial to Israel's survival like the tanks and the air, pervades the service. Slack, slack, slack! Slackness caused the sinking of my ship. Where we were steaming, the attack was no surprise. We should have been ready with countermeasures, but that's not the worst of it. In the Beersheba hospital ward where they first took us, General Gavish, Commander South, came and asked the captain why he was sailing within missile range, when Southern Command had hard intelligence that the Egyptians were preparing to fire missiles.
The captain got so agitated they had to move him to a private room. Abba, that intelligence never reached the Eilat! My God, if we'd been warned, we could have been patrolling thirty miles out, far beyond missile range, and still performed our mission. The captain was always uneasy about our patrol sector so close in, but those were our orders. The other day at a promotion party for some officer the captain had a few glasses of wine, and he started yelling at the top brass, calling them idiots and murderers. He had to be restrained and taken home. I don't blame him one bit. My blood still boils when I think about all this. Whichever shlepper received the intelligence at headquarters probably tossed the despatch in his routine out-basket. Missiles, shmissiles! The inquiry is still going on, but they'll never pin down the guy who should hang. Not in this navy.
What's an Israeli navy for, anyway, Abba? We fight short land wars. All we really need is a coast guard to nab smugglers and sink terrorist craft. This shlepper navy is never going to match the Soviet Union in missile warfare, and no matter what Arab presses the buttons, the Russians are our enemy at sea. I'm ready to go into tanks, paratroops, even special services if my back will hold up. Amos Pasternak came in today, and we talked a lot about this. Amos says the tanks are Israel's backbone. They're your branch, and I'm just fed up with the navy. It's a blind alley. Maybe the white dress uniform got to me. Maybe you shouldn't have named me Noah! Anyway, I'll welcome your advice about what to do and where to turn. I'm at a dead end, and very depressed, as you may gather.
Love to all, Noah
Rock-and-roll music bedevilled Zev Barak as he was trying to reply to this letter, for Nakhama allowed the girls to play records "low" while doing homework. A vague term, that "low," subject to very different constructions by the opposing parties, thought Barak - much like the words in the new UN peace resolution, under urgent grinding debate ever since the Eilat incident and the fiery artillery reprisal.
... no argument, Noah, about your bitterness over the intelligence failure. It happens in the army too, God knows. You've learned in a tragic way that sea warfare has evolved to a new form. For Israel, no more large targets: destroyers, frigates, they're finished. But those Styxes were launched by boats tied up in port. Stable platforms. If fired from a tossing deck, who knows? Still, we must assume the worst. Russian-made boats of Arab navies, probably partly manned by Soviet technicians, will either dominate our coasts, or we must have a navy that can outfight them -
Barak's pen halted, and he ate pistachio nuts from a bowl by his armchair. Was he taking the right tone now, after crumpling into the wastebasket two starts which had tried paternal comfort and reassurance? But his son had not fallen off a bike, he had been blooded in a combat disaster. He resumed writing, as though advising any promising junior officer:
- and remember, our longest border is not with Jordan or Egypt, it's our coastline. Interdiction of hostile sea forces has to be a seaborne mission. The air force has its own mission, Clear skies over Israel. It can't be diverted from that. Even if our navy is not a decisive arm, the lack of a navy is not an option for us. Granted, the navy is at a low point now, but don't for a minute assume that we'll never be able to contend with Russian missile boats. Jewish heads are hard at work, including Uncle Michael. Need I say more? I strongly recommend that you stick it out. Of course the tanks are vital, but you've made your mark in the navy, and your leaving now would hurt an already wounded service...
Barak broke off writing, wondering whether the reference to his brother was a security breach. The missile program was ultrasecret, and Michael Berkowitz as a Technion physicist was much involved. But it was only a letter to a very prudent young naval officer, so he let it stand.
"They're here." Nakhama poked her head into his small den, a converted maid's room. In came a skinny youngster with flaming red hair, followed by Colonel Benny Luria in blue dress uniform. At Halliday's request, Barak had arranged for Benny to lecture at the Air Force Academy. Maybe there would be a return favor somewhere down the line.
"Elohim, is this Danny?" Barak laid aside the writing pad and jumped up. "Benny, by my life he's grown a foot."
The boy barely smiled. Luria embraced Barak, saying, "I couldn't resist bringing him along. It's important for him to see that Air Force Academy. He'll be the envy of every boy on the base, and I'd have brought Dov too, if he weren't tied up in the pilot course."
"So, Danny," said Barak, "you want to be a fighter pilot, like Abba and Dov?"
"That's what I will be," returned Danny in a new deep voice.
Barak's t
wo daughters came gambolling in, crying, "Danny, Danny," and the boy's serious mien melted in laughter, kisses, and hugs. Galia, the twelve-year old, now hardly came up to his shoulder, though they had been wrestling and chasing each other as equals since childhood. She too was altered, by the beginnings of a bosom, and after the first rejoicing she withdrew from Danny, leaving Ruti to do the romping around him.
"He'll be taller than you, Benny," said Nakhama, smiling in the doorway. "He's shooting up. How come? Irit's not tall, neither is Dov."
The thickset aviator grinned and nodded, as the girls dragged Danny off to their room. "Genes, Nakhama, genes. Irit's father was a redheaded six-footer. Danny looks me straight in the eye right now. He'll have trouble folding himself into a cockpit."
"Let that be your biggest worry.'' Nakhama scooped up pistachio shells scattered on the desk. "Dinner in half an hour."
"Zev, what's really happening at the UN?" Luria dropped on the convertible couch. "A real katzenjammer, no, since we blasted the refineries?"
Herman Wouk - The Glory Page 6