by Yaël Dayan
“Leib sends love,” she said.
“Shalom now.”
I hung up. I hadn’t been very nice to Julie on the phone. This was no time for outside sympathy. It was the inside that needed an overhaul.
The children woke me up. They managed to wash and dress and were ready to leave to see Daniel. I opened the shutters to let in the light. The sky was deep blue, but the pavements were wet; it must have rained earlier, the wind sweeping all clouds away.
Before I left for the hospital, I woke Ofra up. For a second she wasn’t sure where she was but a smile followed.
“Thanks for last night.”
“I’m off with the children to the hospital. Make yourself some breakfast. You can stay if you want to.”
“I’ll go back to Beer-Sheba. I have to be alone and figure it all out. I’ll let you know what I decide. You’ve all been a great help. I’d like to have Arik’s diary and the other things.”
“They were taken from Daniel for inquiry. Someone will probably contact you, and when they are through with it, I suppose you can have it.”
“I don’t care for objects, but I thought, for the child …”
Saturday morning is slow even at the hospital. Food is warmed up rather than cooked, visitors arrive late, many with children, and some of the staff stay at home, on call for emergencies only. Whoever was able to walk or be wheeled went out to the lawn in front of the wards where visiting families opened picnic baskets and enjoyed the sunny day.
The past three weeks were the longest weeks the country had ever known, in the same way that the six days of the 1967 war were the shortest. The term “licking wounds” could easily be applied to the mood that prevailed this Saturday morning, but the depth of the wound and the eventual scar was yet to be assessed and treated.
Only as I stood in front of Ward L did I realize my error, but decided to go in anyway, hoping Daniel was still asleep.
The children stayed on the bench outside, looking at a picture book, and I walked along the corridor. The last room was occupied now. A blond youngster was asleep in Arik Berkov’s bed. His face was angelic and untouched, but bandages covered his chest and abdomen. The curtain was drawn and I stood there aimlessly. Beds are washed and scrubbed for a new patient, and even the smell in the room was different now. If Berkov left a trace somewhere, it wasn’t here in room 7.
Avi was in his room having breakfast. I told him Julie called.
“I wasn’t too charming to her, I’m afraid.”
“Well deserved at four in the morning.”
He wanted to know about Ofra. He found her vulnerable and attractive.
“When I am on my feet I may go to Beer-Sheba,” he said half-seriously.
Nadav greeted me with a large smile.
“He’s lucky, your husband. They say it was a bloody battle. Here, bend under the bed.”
I did, to find a crate of tangerines.
“Take some for your husband and children. They are from the farm.”
I left the ward with my arms full of green-orange fruit. He couldn’t know it was my favorite.
The boys were impatient. We walked into Daniel’s room together and found him propped up in bed. His hurt hand was resting in a cloth triangle tied around his neck.
“I can sit for a while. It’s even less painful.”
He was busy telling the boys a story when someone knocked on the door.
An elderly couple walked in. The man wore an old battle-dress and held an envelope. He was past middle age and his face and hands were tanned and wrinkled. The woman was short and handsome, her hair in a bun and a woolen overcoat on her arm. One look at their red eyes told their story, the story of bereaved parents.
He helped her to the chair I pulled from the corner, and fumbling with the envelope he introduced himself and his wife.
“It was our dead son you carried from Suez. We buried him yesterday. In kibbutz Gal-on, where we live. Where he was born and grew up.”
“I am sorry,” Daniel said. “This is Amalia, my wife. And Ofer, and Rani, our boys.”
The woman didn’t try to hold back her tears. She stroked Ofer’s head and he found refuge in my arms.
“We came to thank you,” she said. “His friends told us you risked your life to save him, bring him home for burial.”
“We never leave our dead behind. His friends said he was a wonderful commander. He was dead when we found him, but they said he fought like a lion.”
The father sat down.
“Perhaps you won’t understand it, but when they are brought home dead, it is still something. There is a boy missing in the kibbutz. His parents envy us. You see, we have a grave. A tombstone, a flower bed to tend in the cemetery.”
“Do you have other children?” I asked.
“We have a daughter. She is about to get married. Her fiancé returned yesterday from the Golan. We had another boy, older than our Arik, that was his name—maybe you didn’t know. He was killed in the Six Day War, in Jerusalem, near the Wall.”
I was crying now and Ofer was frightened. The woman took some sweets from her shabby bag and offered them to the children.
“I always carry candies for children in my bag. An old, silly habit. Bad for the teeth, too.”
The boys took the candies hesitantly, looking at us for permission.
The man opened the envelope.
“My son, Arik, was talented. He painted and drew. I brought some of his drawings for you. A small token.”
He put two sheets of paper on the bed. They attracted the boys immediately for they looked like children’s book illustrations at first. Bursting with lively colors, they were full of life and optimism, imaginary birds and flowers in lush landscapes.
“It is beautiful,” Rani exclaimed.
“Thank you,” I said, “but wouldn’t you rather keep them?”
“We have others. We’d like you to have them.”
They didn’t want coffee. They had come a long way from Gal-on and were going back now.
“You are an officer,” the man searched for words. “Tell me with honesty. What happened to us? How could it happen to us? Arik is dead, is it worth it?”
“Who can tell,” Daniel whispered. “It’s either never worth it, not one life, or you call it survival and believe that without the death and the agony and the pain there could be no life for us, for Ofer and Rani, for your daughter’s children.”
“It was different with our other son. He died for Jerusalem.”
“And Arik died so we can keep Jerusalem.”
“But this war was different,” the woman said. Not aggressively, but with a conviction that was beyond dispute.
“True. We grew fat and clumsy. It’s the old theme of the golden calf and the Ten Commandments. Somehow I feel they are bound together in our history, the material and the spiritual. We reach deep bottom in order to climb to great heights. If they hadn’t sinned and worshiped the calf, then repented, and purified themselves, maybe there would have been no Ten Commandments. Jews in Germany stuck to their property and businesses, refused to believe anything could happen, and then came the Holocaust, followed by the foundation of the state. There was Sodom full of sinners, but Abraham emerged as a huge spiritual leader. The deluge produced Noah.”
“Do you really believe the golden calf is broken and gone?”
“For a while. The young ones will have to build new foundations.”
They wished Daniel a speedy recovery, kissed the boys and shook my hand.
“You should come and visit us. Gal-on is a beautiful kibbutz.” We promised, and I accompanied them to the parking lot where a volunteer driver waited patiently.
“What have they done to deserve it?” I asked Daniel.
“It doesn’t work like that. The innocent pay as much as the guilty. The price of belonging.”
“In a week or so I think they’ll let you leave. Perhaps we should go somewhere quiet. Recuperate, think, be alone.”
“We’ll just go
home.”
There was love and care and trust in Daniel’s eyes when he looked at me, and I couldn’t lower mine. There was no hiding anymore. Layers had to be removed and we were exposed and naked again, back to an elementary beginning where nothing could be taken for granted.
About the Author
Yaël Dayan is an Israeli author and political figure. Her father, Moshe Dayan, was the military leader who oversaw the stunning capture of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War. Like her father, Dayan served in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, of which she was a member for ten years with the Labor Party. An outspoken activist, Dayan has been involved with Peace Now and other organizations fostering the peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians. She has written five novels, including Three Weeks in October, about the Yom Kippur War. Among Dayan’s nonfiction works are Israel Journal, a memoir about the Six-Day War, and My Father, His Daughter, a biography of Moshe Dayan.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979 by Yaël Dayan
Cover design by Tracey Dunham
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9868-0
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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YAËL DAYAN
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