by Herman Wouk
Never will Daphna forget those long weeks of waiting for news of her brother, the high hopes for the prisoner exchange, the agonizing moment when the whole family came with Galia to Lod airport and he failed to appear among the gaunt shaven-headed figures in pajamas descending from the Red Cross plane; then hard upon that the crushing news from the search team, the shattered body found in a dense mango grove, miles from the charred wreckage of his Phantom near the Canal. Evidently Dov tried to the last for a crash landing in Sinai, and ejected too late for the parachute to save him. Her parents have been as stoical as she expected. Galia has surprised her. After all, Galia is a soldier herself, from an army family, but she is so broken up that she has been granted hardship leave. She cries all through Peled’s talk while Daphna’s eyes are quite dry.
The ceremony ends. The mourners disperse with few words along the rows of the dead. Daphna does not leave the hillside cemetery with her family, wandering instead among the terraces, her hands jammed in her pockets, the cold wind blowing her hair. Of the hundreds of new graves dug here when the war began, nearly all are now filled, with metal name markers stuck in mounds of fresh dirt; and she comes on one grave after another of friends from school or her scout troop or the army. As she walks, she hears on the wind an incongruous sound in this place of the fallen. It is a clarinet. Too far off to be recognized, a soldier stands on a knoll beside a pile of earth, playing a Mozart air. She realizes at once that this has to be Colonel Lauterman’s son. She heard him play at the Jericho Cafe, she knows his father was killed, and it can be nobody else. She stands listening to the piercing slow music, and now she starts to cry, warm tears rolling down her cold cheeks. She turns and hurries away toward the cemetery entrance.
Yo-yo Lauterman, too. That poor talented son! What a catastrophe, that war! Dov gone, Dzecki crippled, Noah slipped away, no other men worth bothering with in her life, and what of her family? She had never believed Dov could go down. Like her father, he had been to her an invulnerable air warrior. And now Danny is talking with scary intensity about qualifying for Phantoms, and her father, never once mentioning his dead son’s name, is sitting and reading the Bible till all hours, night after night. Only with her mother, who loves to reminisce about Dov, is Daphna at all comfortable.
She does not notice the man on crutches bowed over a grave, until he says, “Hello, Daphna. I’m sorry about your brother.”
“Hello, Shimon.”
The ceramicist is clean-shaven and much thinner. “Today’s a month since Yoram died.” His touch on the grave marker is like a rough caress. “I felt like visiting him.”
“What happened, exactly, Shimon? I heard he got killed in a tank. How come?”
“Oh, it’s a story. Yoram once qualified in tanks, you know. Hated the army, liked the tanks. This tank captain over in Africa got blinded by shrapnel, and the crew shifted up as usual — gunner to captain, loader to gunner, driver to loader. So they needed a driver, and Yoram just jumped in that tank and drove. It hit a mine. Bad news for a tank driver, mines.”
The ceramicist puts on a skullcap, rattles off a liturgy passage about the resurrection of the dead, and recites two short psalms. “Well, goodbye, Yoram,” he says, taking off the skullcap. “I’m sorry you had to die in that shitty war. We’ll miss you. We need you. Now more than ever. Haval!” He turns moist eyes to Daphna, and blows his nose. “Can you imagine how Yoram would be roasting the irresponsible idiots who got us into it, if he were alive? There’s nobody left like Yoram.”
“There’s plenty of roasting going on.”
“Not enough.”
She says as they start to walk out, “Shimon, you’re not getting religion, are you?”
“I had religion as a kid, motek. It hangs on like malaria, and breaks out now and then. I see you’re still in uniform. When do they let you out?”
“Who knows? With all the Syrian violations, the air force remains on high alert. Are you back at work?”
“Absolutely. In fact” — his mournful manner changes to sudden good cheer — “I’ve had a big break, Daphna. A Reform temple in Houston, Texas, wants me to do a lobby wall ceramic. David slaying Goliath, six by ten, real money.”
“Well, that’s great, Shimon.”
“Isn’t it? I may get out of the menorah business yet. Listen, call me when you have an after, and we’ll go to the Jericho and raise a glass for poor Yoram.”
“Lovely. I’ll do it.”
At the central bus-ticket office, Daphna hesitates. Straight to Afula and the base, or via Haifa and Dzecki? Well, it has been two weeks now. So — dutifully — Dzecki.
Yael Nitzan murmurs to Kishote, as they walk out the cemetery gate, “A nephew I really loved, gone! I remember Dov the day he was born, Yossi, blue-eyed, sweet, yawning, a perfect baby, and now —” She breaks off, for Sam Pasternak is walking by arm in arm with Eva Sonshine, and he nods unsmiling. Through the pall of death, life obtrudes upon Yael in a pulse of disapproval. That woman should not have come, and Pasternak is a thick-skinned fool to have brought her.
“When is your appointment with Dado?” she asks, starting up her rented Mercedes in the cemetery parking lot.
“One-thirty. After that a condolence call on Shayna in Haifa. Come along, Yael. It’s a mitzvah.”
“Well, maybe,” says Yael dubiously. The widowed Shayna is not likely to be much consoled, she figures, at the sight of her. As they drive down the broad boulevard to the Tel Aviv highway, she asks, “Yossi, will there be peace now?”
“Hard to say.”
He talks about the shaky cease-fire while the Mercedes winds down the mountain road in thick army and civilian traffic. The enemy has been trying attrition again; shooting incidents on the Sharon perimeter, Sadat threatening to renew the war, the Syrians resuming their harassing actions. The Arab standing armies can maintain this pressure indefinitely while their civilian life goes back to normal, he explains, but all Israel has to stay on war alert. The personal lives of the reserve troops are being disrupted, national morale is sinking, the economy is running down; still, the siege of the Third Army has to go on. It is Golda’s sole leverage for some kind of real move to peace.
“There were rumors for a while of an American airlift to that army,” says Yael. “What happened?”
“The Egyptians sent our prisoners home, and Golda let one more supply convoy through.”
When the Tel Aviv skyline comes hazily in sight, Yael says, “Listen, Yossi, I’m off to Los Angeles next Monday. I’ve been away from Eva for over a month. Also, Sheva Leavis wants me back.”
“Do you have any more pictures of Eva?”
“Always. In my purse here. Yellow envelope.”
He shuffles the pictures. “She’s becoming so beautiful.”
“Yes. Also developing an iron will and a fierce temper, and she’s the worst flirt I’ve ever seen. She’s ahead of Aryeh at this age in talking English and Hebrew. You should come and see her.”
“If only I could.” He stares with longing at the fair-haired little girl, laughing on a rocking horse.
Yael pulls up at the curb outside the Kirya and turns off the ignition. “I have something to tell you. Sheva Leavis is interested in your future once you leave the army.”
“My future?” Kishote pushes his glasses up on his nose and peers at her. “In what way?”
“His business base is in the Far East, always has been. Your brother Lee has never taken to that side of Sheva’s interests, he’s all for real estate, casinos, films, and so on. Sheva has to travel months on end, it’s all face-to-face handshake business in Asia, with very big money involved. He’s getting old for it, and he believes you could handle it.”
“Me? All I know is the army.”
“How much longer can you stay in the army? Three years? Four? Ramatkhal you won’t be. You’re that good, but you’re not in the running, not in the club. What will you do once you get out?”
“Who knows? Go around the world, for a change. Then maybe sweep
the Jerusalem streets, and keep an eye on Aryeh. Tell me about Max Roweh.”
“Who? Professor Roweh?” Slight pause. “Why, I met him on a plane, and I heard him give a soporific lecture. What about him?”
“He heads a fund to help war widows.”
“Yes, his wife established it.”
“Right. I’m trying to get money for some real distress cases in my division. The tea-drinking shleppers who run that fund just drivel and don’t pay. A word from you to him might help.”
“I don’t know him that well, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Great.”
The Ramatkhal stands up behind the desk to hold out his hand. A small courtesy, but that’s Dado. A mentsch. The yellow-gray color is gone and his eyes are less puffy, but he still has the war-harried look and the harsh cough. The maps on his walls show green cease-fire lines slashed across Syria and Egypt, with red marks and dates noting cease-fire violations.
“So, Yossi, what’s been happening in Africa?”
Kishote summarizes the picture in the north sector he now commands while Sharon electioneers. Dado asks sharp questions about the weaker units, naming commanders down to the company level.
“Well, you’ve been doing a good job,” he says at last. A girl soldier brings in pitted dates, which Dado eats as he talks, now and then coughing. “It was a very hard war, Kishote. You know, of course, about this Agranat Commission?”
“I heard the news last night on Army Radio.” The uproar about the surprise attack has led to the appointment of an inquiry panel: two Supreme Court justices, two former Ramatkhals, and the state comptroller. “Isn’t it a premature step, sir? An internal army inquiry should come first.”
“Well, a public circus was probably inevitable with an election coming on. Maybe it’ll clear the air a bit.” He looks keenly at Kishote from under his heavy brows. “I have good legal advice, but I may want to talk out some military aspects with you now and then.”
“With me, sir?”
“I trust you. You’re a truth teller.”
The words and the tone give Yossi a strong sense of how lonely a Chief of Staff must be, ever surrounded with intrigue and pressures; Dado more than any before him, perhaps. Formality discarded, the Ramatkhal leans back in his chair with a friendly smile. “You mamzer, you had your nerve, disagreeing with Arik that day at Kishuf. You paid dearly for it, too.” (Not much escapes him!) “But you told the truth. Yossi, I have you in mind for Deputy Chief of Staff for operations. The slot is occupied, but I’m thinking ahead.”
This dreamlike turn confounds Kishote. He has assumed that Dado summoned him to explain a fatal mishap in his sector; and as for advancement to such a central post, he has despaired of it. He blurts without thinking, “Sir, about that tank accident, I visited the parents of the driver and loader this morning. The captain was a concentration camp survivor, so no parents. I’ll see the gunner’s family in Haifa later today.”
Dado does not blink at the non sequitur. “What happened, exactly, and how?”
“Sir, we’ve lost so many tank crews, we’ve had to qualify more of them in a big hurry. One of the new tank commanders bypassed an electronic safety lock, his gunner fired off a shell and blew up a tank ten feet away. Killed the crew, all four of them.”
Dado listens with a scowl. “A rotten business. Bad enough when the boys die fighting Arabs. But listen, this was a war casualty, too. We have to man the perimeters until we disengage. We lost forty percent in tanks, and accidents with green crews will happen. The whole armored force should get a warning despatch about this incident.”
“I’ve drafted one, sir, for Chief, Armor Command.”
“Kishote, what do I say to the Agranat Commission when they ask, ‘Why were we surprised?’”
To this abrupt probe, Kishote slowly returns, “First and foremost, sir, an intelligence failure. Who could anticipate and plan for a warning of only eight hours?”
“No good. I’m responsible for the state of our military intelligence. Intelligence guessed wrong on the probability of war, and on the seventy-two-hour warning. I didn’t have to accept those guesses.”
“The Minister of Defense accepted them.”
“He’s a civilian.”
Stung, Kishote bursts out, “Dado, the enemy started with every possible military advantage — strategic and tactical surprise on two fronts, lopsided edge in weapons and numbers, resupply and backing from day one by a superpower — all that, and under your command we still beat them. Can the Agranat Commission ignore that?”
Dado smiles at Kishote’s vehemence. “Their writ only runs to what went wrong militarily in the first three days.”
“What went wrong was that everyone lost their heads except you and Golda.”
“We’ll see. There’s credit and there’s blame for me, Yossi. A Ramatkhal should resign if he disagrees strongly enough with government policy, that’s his way to yell, ‘The house is on fire!’ I never felt that way in the months before the war. Maybe I should have.” Dado stands up with a cheery smile. “So tell me, how is that hand-some son of yours? That Aryeh?”
“He goes to the army next year. His ideal is Amos Pasternak, so his goal is Sayeret Matkhal.”
Dado’s heavy eyebrows go far up. “Can he do it?”
“Well, I’m not sure. He already wears glasses.”
“You haven’t done badly with glasses.” As Dado walks Kishote to the door, taking his elbow, he whimsically inquires, “How will your boss make out in the election, Yossi?”
“I don’t know, but I wish he’d drop the hindsight noise he’s making about the war.”
“Well, Arik is Arik. One thing is sure, Golda will lose a lot of ground. The people want a scapegoat, and heads must roll.”
Daphna has to admire the deftness with which Dzecki parks the Porsche in a narrow curb space between two cars, using the stump in a pinned-up sleeve to steady the wheel while his left hand shifts gears. But the performance is freakish and repellent to her. That, she cannot help.
“Well, well, old Guli is here,” says Dzecki. “Nice of him.”
“How do you know he’s here?”
“There’s only one silver Lincoln in all of Israel.” Dzecki gestures at the huge gleaming car in front of them. “He owns this building and forty others in Haifa.”
“So, I get to meet Guli again. According to Noah Guli’s a jailbird, a crook, a gorilla who’ll strip you and your father down to your underwear.”
“That’s Noah’s opinion. So far we’ve made money with Guli. I’ll tell you this about Guli, his AA unit on the Golan was overrun, the captain was killed, and Guli took over and they shot their way out, back to our lines.” As they climb the stairs to the Berkowitz apartment on the fifth floor, they hear several voices above, men and women, one louder than the rest. “That’s Guli now,” says Dzecki, “coming down.”
Daphna has been picturing the kablan, since she first glimpsed him years ago, as something like an Israeli King Kong, but today he is a reasonably well-groomed businessman, beefy and blue-jowled, dressed in a dark suit and tie for a condolence visit. He stops on the landing and exclaims with a bear hug, “Dzecki! Your mother and father are up there. Shayna’s a strong lady, she’s bearing up well.”
“This is Daphna Luria, Guli.”
“Ah yes, Shimon’s protégée. Hello there, where’s my Samson?” he inquires with mock gruffness.
“It’s the war, sir. As soon as they let me out of this uniform —”
“Well, no hurry, but that spot in the hotel lobby is empty and waiting.”
“So that’s Guli,” says Daphna, as he tramples downstairs. “Not such a monster, after all. Was one of those ladies his wife?”
“His wife died last year. They didn’t get along. Guli once told me that he’s slept with more women than he has hairs on his head. I believe him.”
“Ugh,” says Daphna.
Through the open door to the apartment comes the sound of lively talk. “These are mos
tly university people,” says Dzecki as they walk in. “Friends of Professor Berkowitz, or else members of his synagogue. We won’t stay long, just pay our respects to Shayna —”
“Why, there’s General Barak,” says Daphna, discerning him sitting in uniform on a low stool. Another mourning stool beside him is empty. “He was just at Dov’s funeral.” She makes her way to him. “Sir, accept my condolences about your brother Michael.”
“Thank you. A day for mourning brothers, isn’t it?” he says. “You were very good with Galia, Daphna. She was more grateful than she could say.”
Words about Dov stick in Zev Barak’s throat. His own brother has been a casualty of the war, but in a different way. Barak has attended too many funerals of his friends’ sons, each interment a new agonizing laceration. The visits to the badly wounded, like Dzecki Barkowe there near the door, talking to his mother and father, are in a way even more harrowing; less final, less black, but harder to endure because of the glaring disfigurement and the pain. Alas for those poor stunned Berkowitz-Barkowe parents and their one-armed son, maimed in a Jewish war so far from Great Neck, Long Island!
Dzecki comes to him and gestures at the vacant stool. “Where’s Shayna, sir?”
“She’s packing up for Reuven in the back bedroom. His mother has come from Australia to take him.”
“Haval. That’s very sad. Very hard on Aunt Shayna.”
Dzecki goes off with Daphna to the back room. Other consolers approach the general, and some try to engage him in talk about the Agranat Commission, but he makes no response. Yossi Nitzan shows up, and sits down on the low stool beside Barak.