Irene Fleg
Pasternak fils had more pressing things on his mind now than the tanned blond lady, but he had been long in the field and he had no steady girlfriend. As he slipped under the blankets in his heavy tank coveralls he was reflecting that this was an oblique sort of come-on letter. A Parisienne with three children and a husband active in the Alliance, therefore probably rich; out of the question, and not his style anyway. Still, how peculiarly seductive she had seemed.... Maybe one day when all this cooled down... He fell asleep indulging in these weary fantasies.
Dov Luria had a very different Rosh Hashanah eve. At midday he was flying at forty thousand feet over the Golan, photographing Syrian tanks and artillery, massed for miles on miles right up to the Purple Line of the cease-fire; and before sundown, dressed in a stiff new civilian suit, he was walking
arm in arm with Galia Barak to the Ezrakh's synagogue in Jerusalem. A bizarre transition, but such was an aviator's life. The Baraks had invited him and his parents for holiday dinner, and his father had told him to bring Galia to the Ezrakh's services first. Dov was mildly tolerant of his father's drift to religion, and Galia was not about to object to anything suggested by Dov's famous father. She was dizzy with tension, awaiting a serious word from Dov. She wore a costly red wool dress bought for her in Tel Aviv by her mother, just for this dinner, after they had shopped vainly for two days in Jerusalem.
As for Dov, he was more than ready to speak the serious word, but this fighter pilot was plain scared. Galia Barak baffled him. Did she really like him? She now seemed to him the unmatchable girl among girls, her dark eyes a fathomless mystery, her body a tall sweet flame, her every word charming and witty, her every motion full of grace, her relatively shy and chaste kisses the tantalizing essence of undeclared love. He hoped she cared for him, but on the other hand he had heard she was also seeing a very tall paratrooper. Dov was uncomfortable about his short stature, for Galia was half an inch taller. Girls! Suppose she turned him down?
They were walking in the pedestrian stream filling the street, for in the Holy City, auto traffic was down to zero. Friends greeted her and gave Dov sharp-eyed looks which warmed her heart. That Galia was going with a Phantom pilot was known all through Jerusalem's teenage set, though at the moment he was in mufti and complaining about it. "The tie chokes me," he said. "My father had this religious grandmother. She once told him that in the old country a new suit for Rosh Hashanah was a must. So last week he dragged me out and bought me this getup."
"I love it," said Galia. It was a checkered brown suit which the Hebrew label called "Scotch tweed," and for Israeli ersatz it fit well enough. Services were already droning inside the Ezrakh's little synagogue on a side street, and Benny Luria was waiting by an open worm-eaten wooden door hanging askew on its hinges.
"You go in the women's section," he said to Galia.
"I know, I know." She slipped away, laughing. A bearded gabbai led them to reserved front seats in the packed plaster-
walled shul. Deep in prayer by the Holy Ark, the Ezrakh did not glance around at them, though General Luria's uniform was causing a stir. Without explanation, the Ezrakh had told him to wear it.
For Dov the service was a bore. The standings, sittings, and chantings confused him, and he passed the time reading the quaint Hebrew of the liturgy, all new to him. When the Ezrakh gave a brief talk, Dov was surprised at his clear colloquial Hebrew. He was half expecting Yiddish.
"K'tiva v'hateema tova!" the Ezrakh began in his high weak voice. ("A good decree, written and sealed, to you all!") "This greeting, dear friends, should not be used at services tomorrow, on the second night of our holiday. Tonight, as we are taught, the righteous and the wicked receive their final decree. But bainonim [mediocrities] have the ten days until Yom Kippur to review their deeds, and true remorse can still change the outcome." He stroked his long white beard, glancing around with a little smile. "So you see, if tomorrow night you wish your neighbor a good decree, you imply he is not righteous, but a mediocrity! Yet how can you be sure? We must judge every man on the side of merit. All the same, my friends, I give you permission to wish me a good decree tomorrow night, because to my pain, I am a mediocrity of mediocrities, and I thank the Creator for the Ten Days of Repentance."
Dov asked Galia, when they came out amid the chattering congregants, "How was it in purdah?" The women were all staring at his father.
"Oh, b'seder, but I sure got funny looks. Mostly old ladies in there. I guess the young ones are home making dinner." The first stars were out in the clear violet Jerusalem sky, and a cool breeze was blowing. "General, I told Mama that Dov and I would walk to the Wall after services. So enjoy dinner, and we'll be back later."
"Shana tova," he said, with a paternal wistful smile. Those two could skip dinner or do what they pleased. The world was theirs.
Hand in hand they walked downhill, across a valley and up the slope to the Old City. More tense than he had been while flying over Syria, Dov wondered how to speak a serious word, meantime telling Galia about a tank column that had
broken through here to the Jaffa Gate in the Six-Day War. He had learned this in an army tour of battle sites for recruits. The route was unmarked, just so many hilly streets and vacant weed-choked lots.
"We were in Washington then," she said. "We missed it all."
"I was here, all right. My father led the air strike that won the war."
"Oh, who doesn't know that? He's a great hero."
"Well, he heard Dayan say that your father was more important to the war in Washington than two brigades on the battlefield."
"I was twelve," Galia said. "What did I know? I just knew I didn't like America. I missed my friends."
"As soon as the war was over," Dov said, "my father brought us to the Wall. All this here" - he gestured back at the valley - "was no-man's-land. Ruins, barbed wire, minefields, booby traps. It's hard to imagine now." They walked in silence, intertwined fingers tightening. After a while he said, "Could you hear the Ezrakh?"
"Barely. Why?"
"Are we supposed to believe all that? Decrees, repentance? A book in heaven where everybody's deeds are recorded, and a judgment is written down for next year - who lives, who dies, who by fire, who by water, and so on? I figure it's all metaphorical, don't you? My father's going in for religion lately."
"My mother's getting back to it, too."
"You know, Galia, I talked to the pilots who knocked down the Syrians in that dogfight. They say that going into battle you're too busy to pray, but coming out of it you sure thank God, whether you're religious or not."
Once inside the Old City walls, Galia led him by the hand through gloomy narrow alleys and deserted little streets, moving always downhill. "You're at home here, aren't you?" he said.
"Oh, there's nothing to do in Jerusalem on Shabbat, so we come here, my friends and I. You can explore the Old City forever. There's good shopping, too."
"And the Arabs?"
"Some are nice, others not so nice. Naturally they all wish we'd drop dead."
They came out on a terrace above a wide plaza, where the floodlit Wall was mobbed by turbulent worshippers. "There's always a huge crowd on holidays," she said.
Dov said, "You know, the Wall used to be in a long dark alley. You couldn't see it till you got right up to it. That's how I first saw it."
"It already looked like this," she said, "when we came home."
Descending a long flight of stone steps to the plaza, they could hear discordant chants rising from half a dozen services going on at once, clustered around different reading stands and prayer leaders. "This section's for the men," she said. "Want to push in, up to the Wall? Some people make a point to kiss the stones."
"No thanks." He was staring over the people's heads at the Wall. "This makes me think, though."
"Of what?"
"Abba brought us here right after the war. Me, Daphna, Danny. He told us Jews used to spend their life savings, just to travel to see the Wall
once before they died. Some even came on foot, thousands of miles. Galia, in six years this is the second time I've been here."
"It's too easy now," said Galia. She added with a laugh, "See? We girls have to watch out for that."
Dov did not react to her teasing at all. "You know something? From the air at reconnaissance altitude, Galia, you're looking down, through the clouds, at mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, farmland, and the sea. Just the earth as it is - brown, green, gray, and then the big blue stretch of the Mediterranean. There's no Syria, no Iraq, no Jordan, no Egypt, no Israel. It's all of a piece, all the same. No Promised Land. Zionism looks a lot different from up there." He grunted. "Still, returning to base, you sure look for that little Promised Land."
"Come."
"Where to?"
"You'll see." She led him through more alleys, up dark staircases, along stone parapets, and under ancient arches.
They climbed and climbed, and arrived atop a rough windswept stone tower under black sky crowded with stars. Below, lights twinkled on all sides, as far as they could see. "Now here's a view of Jerusalem few people know about," said Galia, leaning against him. 'Three hundred sixty degrees. Chilly, though."
He put an arm around her. "I'm not cold. I've got on my Rosh Hashanah suit."
"So you have. It feels rough, but nice."
They were both oddly short of breath. "Who wants to kiss stones?" the Phantom pilot said, and he seized her and went to full throttle, which had been Galia's idea, conceivably.
Israelis seldom run out of conversation, but after dinner at the Baraks' the talk was halting, as the four parents avoided the question in all their minds: namely, what to all the devils was happening with Dov and Galia? Nor did the men want to involve the wives in war talk. The November election was a safe topic. Barak feared, so he said, that Sharon's attempt to form a "Likud" bloc to challenge Labor would give the religious splinter parties leverage to force through more blue laws. Luria argued that no political price was too high to get rid of Labor's arteriosclerotic socialism.
"Come on, Benny," said Barak, "can you picture that crazy Begin as our head of government?"
"This is a crazy country," said Luria, "and crazier developments have turned out well."
The opening of the outside door put an end to all this. Galia sailed in dishevelled and radiant, Dov close behind. "We have two announcements," she carolled. "First, we're starved. Second-" her sparkling glance invited Dov to speak.
"We're engaged," he said. "Shana tova!"
The day after Rosh Hashanah, Noah telephoned his father from Haifa to hint at ominous new naval intelligence. Barak responded, "Drive down here, let's not talk on the phone about it," and Noah soon arrived in coveralls, obviously having broken all speed limits. They sat down to lunch on what remained of Nakhama's New Year kreplach soup, and Barak told him about the engagement.
"Engaged? Look, Abba, I like Dov, he's first class, but she's only seventeen-"
"Well, she'll do her sadir service first. That's another long time of growing up. Right now they're planning to go skiing in Switzerland after Yom Kippur, if he can get a three-day leave. It's Benny's engagement present to them."
"A three-day leave?" Noah stopped eating. "Elohim, hasn't the air force gone on alert?"
"Not unless I haven't been told, and that's most unlikely."
Noah dropped his spoon with a clank. "Okay. I may be stepping out of line to say this, Abba, but I came down here to say it. In the name of God, the Arabs are about to go to war! Doesn't the air force know that? Doesn't the Prime Minister? Doesn't the Defense Ministry? Don't you?"
"You're talking about your naval intelligence reports."
"Exactly, and it's war this time, believe me."
Noah reeled off the preparations for combat that naval intelligence was tracking in the Syrian and Egyptian fleets. Barak nodded and nodded, regarding his son with a glum mien. "Noah, your admiral and his chief intelligence officer were here for hours yesterday, arguing with General Zeira. He knows those facts, and a lot more they don't know. His assessment remains 'very low probability.' "
Noah gnawed his lips. "And is Golda Meir actually going to France, as the papers say?"
"She is."
"To address, some stupid socialist convention?"
"No, the Council of Europe."
"What's that? Does it have any military power? Is it part of NATO?"
"NATO? No, it's a forum for talk about political unity and human rights." Barak pushed back his plate, and looked his son in the eye. "I'll trust you with a confidence. I objected forcibly to her leaving Israel now."
"Good for you, Abba! And what did she say?"
"Well, I'll tell you, pretty exactly. She said: 'The world's greatest soldier is my Minister of Defense, and he has great generals under him - Dado, Tallik, Bren, Arik, Raful, you know them all. Do those warriors need an old lady nurse-maiding them and second-guessing them?' "
Noah broke in mulishly, "Maybe they do-"
"Listen! She went on, 'It's an important honor for Israel that I address that council. Cancelling would play right into Arab hands. Their game is to paralyze us, to keep Israel from functioning like a normal country. Anyway, I'll be back the next day, and at worst I can return in five hours.' " Barak shrugged. "That's what she said."
"B'seder, Abba. So that's that. I guess I had my nerve coming here. But I'll tell you this. When it starts - and it's going to, very soon - the navy will be stripped for action, with warmed-up engines."
"That's fine for the navy, Noah. It's not the same as alarming our people and the superpowers by mobilizing the reserves, and giving the Arabs just the excuse they may seek to attack."
"Be straight with me, Abba. Do you think the reserves should be mobilized?"
They stared hard at each other. "Noah, I've been disgracefully wrong on that question before. I'm not the chief of military intelligence."
After an awkward moment, Noah spoke with a complete change of tone. "Have I ever told you about the French girl I met in Cherbourg?"
"Yes. Julie something, father in the fish business?"
"Good memory. Julie Levinson. She's here, and she's got herself a job in the French Embassy. Keen girl."
Barak smiled. "Chasing you down, is she?"
Not returning the smile, Noah said a shade stiffly, "Julie's here for real. She knows all about Daphna, and she's not chasing me. Lovely girl, though. Sweet, stable, intelligent."
"Well, with all these engagements going on, what about Daphna?"
"I'm going now to her studio, as she calls it."
"Will you come home for Yom Kippur?"
"Not in our state of alert, not unless our admiral relaxes a lot."
"Well, if not, have an easy fast."
"You too, Abba."
had to ring several times before Daphna in a smeary smock opened the door of her dingy cellar room in Jaffa.
"Oh, it's only you," she said, wiping her hands on a rag. "Come in. It's a frightful mess."
"What does that mean, 'only you'?"
"Oh, just that I'm expecting a guy from the Mekhess. Tax problem. What are you doing here?"
For answer he took her in his arms. "Oo-ah," she said between kisses, "how ardent! You're almost as grimy as I am, so - No, no! Hey, hands off! Easy, motek!" She broke free. "Why aren't you in Haifa?"
"I had to see my father in Jerusalem. I'm on my way back, but I wanted to talk to you, hamoodah. There's going to be a war."
"What? A war?" She gestured at a radio murmuring American rock-and-roll. "Is there news I missed?"
"Daphna, take my word for it-"
"Noah, did you fall on your head? Things couldn't be more peaceful. I delivered a menorah this morning to a Canadian client at the Sheraton. Mobs! This city is bubbling like New York. A war?"
He was glancing around at the worktables piled with tools, clay lumps, unfinished ceramics, stained cloths, and dirty dishes. "What kind of tax trouble? You really make that kind of money?"
"Oh, prutot [pennies]. But they're after me all the same. God, there's no place to sit down, is there?"
She cleared a skirt, sweater, and frilly underwear off a cot. He pulled her. down beside him and asked, "Are you going home to Tel Nof base for Yom Kippur?"
Herman Wouk - The Glory Page 29