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YET.
THE FATE SPINNER
by
Elisha Porat
Translated from the Hebrew by Alan
Sacks
1.
That Sabbath eve, I was compelled to make a difficult
decision, whether to accept the invitation of my friend, Ami Aviram, to drive
to Eilat with him and the two women, both teachers, or to decline his offer
and miss the adventures it promised on an entertaining ride. I surely
did not lack for excuses, some of them even good and legitimate. It
was already three weeks since I had been free on leave or seen my little
family. My wife certainly was worn with worry, not to mention my
mother.
We won't consider the young children here. Ami would
only make fun of me if I were to speak for them. I had a huge pile
of soldier's laundry and torn uniforms in need of immediate mending.
Moreover, the time had come to replace my personal effects, which once
again were exhausted. I could see to all these matters only if I drove
home on a long Sabbath pass. So I slapped Ami on the back and told
my friend, "Thanks, Ami. That was very nice of you to think of me,
but please find another partner for your wild ride to Eilat. I am going
home."
It was only days later, when Ami returned from his pleasure
trip and shut the door behind us in our temporary barracks hastily converted
from an old railway carriage, that I learned he had spent almost no time
in Eilat. The moment they reached the city, one of the teachers, who
had never been farther south than Eilat, asked to continue tothe Sinai.
Ami was in an unusually generous mood and said, "Why not? Is
anyone looking over our shoulders? We can make it to Nueba or even
down to Dahab." And that's what they did. They skipped Eilat
and zipped down the coast for Dahab until they had car trouble on the way
and, afraid to take any chances, turned back to Nueba.
Three golden days were theirs in the warm sand of Nueba.
They dipped into the green tinted water, retired to the beach and,
fatigued by their forays into the sea and back, stripped off their bathing
suits and cavorted naked as infants. Even the passing Beduins mounted
on their camels did not deter them from their revelry.
Brimming with excitement, Ami took me by the shoulder and said, "You would
really have enjoyed yourself there. All your troubles would have melted away.
The caressing touch of sand would have erased all those mournful poems
of memory you publish in the newspapers. At last, you would have made
time for the fun side of life you've walled off since the war. You
would have shed the gloom that sits on you like a stone and rested from your
foolish investigations--where was this general when the war broke out, and
where was that colonel the day the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights? You
would have bloomed anew on the soft sand and forgotten the names you've collected
by the hundreds from the papers . You know, we didn't even cover up
at night. We lay close together, the four of us, and the girls favorably
surprised me. They were wonderful, really good companions, maybe even
happy."
Seated on a couch in the carriage, I had rejected all his
enticements. He danced around me, plied me with excellent coffee and
then poured me a cognac of which I was fond.
He pampered me in a thousand ways. He was no idiot. Even
before the first battles, I had discerned in him a healthy measure of shrewdness
in his dealings with people. I felt just like an obstinate child, flailing
my legs, flinging my arm back and forth and bursting with desire for the
sweet treat dangling before me while from my mouth came the cry, "No, I don't
want it." I could not bring myself to yield to him no matter how much I wanted
to. And what didn't he offer me that night? A ride in his car,
lodging in a hotel and all expenses on him. I wouldn't have to pay
so much as a penny out of my own pocket. And what, all in all, did
he want from me? Just that I keep the second teacher company, Rina
or Dina, her name already escapes me.
So far as he was concerned, I didn't have to lay a finger on
her. I could sit and pass the whole time reciting with her from my
book of verse. All he needed was a filler for the trip. The petite
teacher he was courting would leave only as part of a foursome, and he simply
would not give up. As though he had read my doubts, Ami assured me
no one would know of our jaunt. Though we would not travel in secret,
we would exploit to the hilt the chaos bequeathed bythe war.
"Don't worry, I used to arrange flings like this before the
war. We'll make it look like were driving to Tiberias for a night of
dancing at a club on the Sea of Galilee, then I'll invent a crisis in Tel
Aviv, urgent repairs on the car let's say. After that, no one will
recognize us in civilian clothes on the way to Eilat. If you're afraid,
we can stop at a barbershop on the road and make a few changes in your
appearance. Hey, what are you scared of? Look, there's always
a lighter side to war. Why shouldn't we take advantage of that while
we can? Haven't we suffered enough? Haven't we eaten enough
shit?"
We sat utterly alone in the carriage. The rest of
the platoon had left for patrol or guard duty. Ami beseeched me with
such fervor that I thought he would break out any moment into tears of
supplication. What a queer demon had taken hold of him. He often
surprised me by devising new games to pass the morning; that's how he looked
now.
But what was this perverse madness that possessed him? What
was thereabout this little teacher he had met in Tiberias? What did
he see in her? Why was he crazy about her?
I smiled and shook my head. "No, Ami, it won't happen."
He nearly lost his temper.
For a moment, he thought that his proposal had not tempted me
at all. Nor did I know how to confide that no one had made me an offer
like that before. That was the most seductive invitation anyone ever
put before me. I yearned to be swept away with him and his pair of
teachers, not merely to Eilat and the shores of Sinai but to every corner
of the globe, to every posh hotel and every filthy patch of grass, for once
in my life to be one bachelor among many, one random tourist among others,
to cross the scarred surface of the earth in a lust-ridden, mind-numbing
journey, to be bound to no one and no object, without responsibilities to
my little family, to assume a careless mein among friends gathering after
long months of duty, just to glide along swiftly and light as air, peeking
here and stopping there, to take the young teacher from Tiberias in my arms
with a sudden groan and bend to the slit in her blouse and slide my lascivious
hand between her legs on the back seat of the car.
But no, Ami, I just can't go with you. Find someone else.
Another one ofthe guys must be dying to go to Eilat with you and the
two lovely teachers, to live it up on anunexpected break at your expense,
irresistible precisely because it seems so unimaginable and removed from
real life as to be wholly unattainable. Who could withstand the allure
of that enchantment?
2.
It goes without saying that the night of dancing ended in a
brawl. Blows were exchanged and the night club on the Sea of Galilee
became a scene of mass disorder.
The police would have been summoned but we eventually got away
in Ami'scar and no one made the call to the precinct. Some local boys
pursued us for a while, then gave up and let us go.
The quarrel came as a surprise. It ignited in a flash
and spread like wildfire. The dance hall had been quiet and peaceful
up till then, although the girls declared that they could feel tension in
the air. Ami drank too much and wouldn't let us pull him from the circle
of dancers. By then it was too late. He bumped into a boy, who
insulted the little teacher. Like an idiot, I asked him, as I used
to ask everyone, "Where were you on
October 6, you filthy swine? Where did you hide when it all began?"
The boy made some obscene reply. Ami came at him and,
in a matter of seconds, fists began to fly. The teachers, screaming
in panic, fled for the small tables along the walls.
White with rage, Ami landed a couple of good punches to the
boy's gut and throat.
Ami's face had so changed that I grew fearful for him. Uncertain
of what was happening, I began to tug him towards the exit. The little teacher
clutched him and clung to his belt.
A sudden sweat poured over his neck and back and his breath
whistled through his teeth like a banshee as he struggled under the extra
weight. All I knew was that the night of dancing had been ruined and that
we had to get out as quickly as possible.
We learned later that most of the dancers had been on
our side. Some of them had seen the boy pestering the little teacher
all evening. There had been a few minutes when Ami sat out a dance.
While he joined me for a drink in the corner, the locals had immediately
set upon his little teacher. The hot-headed boy glued himself to her.
Some said that he already knew her.
It may be that we were chased out of the dance club, but had
we stayed and fought a bit longer in defense of our honor, we might actually
have won. The boy Ami slugged was ignominiously ejected and sent flying
off the premises with a kick. But we didn't have much time to think.
We were too few, just four of us, and you can't count the girls.
Rina or Dina, I can't remember her name, suddenly saw from
the far end of the hallthat we were leaving without her and let out a wail.
When some of the dancers rushed to see what had happened to her, she
put herself in their hands, said that she couldn't breath, she was choking
to death, and asked them to take her out of the hall at once.
That's how she caught up with us as we were getting into Ami's
car. She pressed close against her friend, the little teacher.
Each of us offered an idea for our next destination. Only
Ami had no wish to go anywhere. He wanted to return to the dance hall,
part the gyrating crowd, grab that firebrand of a boy with whom he had squared
off and exact brutal retribution. Amiwasn't a violent fellow, but the
sudden assault had offended him and he was at a loss to understand that we
were not driven as he was by the urge for revenge. He stopped the car
on the outskirts of Tiberias and sat insilence for some minutes. "Those
bastards," he spat out at last. "They dodge the war, then hide out
in cafes and dance halls, and still have enough chutzpa left over to pick
on law-abiding soldiers doing their reserve duty."
We all agreed with him. Each of us had a short but typical
story about the gall of goldbricks. Even the little teacher told her
own brief account. Rina or Dina or whatever her name was said we were
all innocents, people working for nothing. We need only tag along some
time to a class in her run-down neighborhood school to discover just where
all the young men of the city were and where they were hiding, how they had
bamboozled the military authorities and evaded hard service.
We sat jammed in Ami's little car, feeling sorry for ourselves
and complaining about the hardships of our lives. In another moment,
we would have burst into sobs of infinite and unblemished self-pity. I
told Ami to start the car before we drowned in our own tears.
"Ok, but where to?" Ami asked. The little teacher suggested
that we drive to the hotel at Kibbutz Ginosar, where the guests were far
more refined and we might dance the night away without a fight. It
was a beautiful night by the time we arrived. The moon shone in the
sky and the Sea of Galilee. None of us felt like dancing. We
walked to the water's edge and sat on the pier. The little teacher
was already entwined in Ami's arms. Rina or Dina moved closer and pressed
against my shoulder. I draped my arm around the curve of her back and
asked her, under my breath, "Where were you, by God, on that Sabbath, October
6, Yom Kippur?"
Some tourists from the United States gathered around us. Ami
built a fire and the little teacher began to sing melancholy ballads. The
tourists unpacked guitars and cameras and offered cups of hot coffee. The
excitement of the fistfight in the nightclub released its grip on us. The
insults, the curses, the blows, all was
forgotten. The color returned to Ami's face, and I saw that he too
was slowly regaining his calm.
When stories and questions began to go around, I did not subject
the tourists to my usual attack. Nor did I ask them my customary question,
"Where the hell were you onthe sixth of October?" I suddenly realized
that people could be in different places and no one was obliged to explain
just where he was when the battles began. On the contrary, I understood
that if there was anything people wanted to forget, it was the first moments
of the war. We had eaten enough shit since then, and while I tirelessly
compiled lists of names from the newspapers, not everyone was so obsessed.
We were in no hurry to take leave of the lovely teachers or
return to our camp. I was content to stretch out on the shore and rock
in Rina or Dina's arms until the light of day. Before I knew it, dawn was
approaching. Our bones ached from sitting so long, but we let the fire die
out of itself and made no move to shoo away the tourists.
Still, they gradually scattered to their hotel rooms,
senti-mentally humming the sad songs we had sung around the fire. We
too finally uncranked our frozen bones and squeezed into Ami's claustrophobic
car. I dozed while we drove back to Tiberias and dropped the teachers at
their apartment, and was deep asleep by the time Ami stopped at the gate
to the camp and identified us to the battalion guard.
3.
One day, I heard Ami in an agitated telephone conversation
with his wife.
She was weeping on the phone, complaining about a vicious neighbor
who had trespassed on their roof while installing a new flue. The roof
had cracked and their room filled with soot. She told the neighbor to quit
but he laughed in her face. I saw how edgy Ami was growing. He
made no attempt to keep his voice down as he scolded his wife in a voice
before the whole platoon.
"Don't cry," he shouted into the phone. "Crying won't
help. I'm on my way. Just stay put. God have mercy on the
neighbor, I promise you he'll be sorry. I'll split his skull just like
he cracked the ceiling on you."
Ami was insufferably self-righteous after the telephone call.
"Have you ever seen a bastard like that? I'm sure he's another
of the those draft-dodgers. The bastards, thousands of them scurrying
down holes and now they suddenly decide to pop out and take a look around.
With someone like that, you have to chop off his head."
I tried to calm him down. His wife surely had exaggerated,
I said, she missed him terribly. Wives all over the country were crying
on telephones now at the drop of a hat.
They wept out of worry and despair and because they could not
see an end to the situation or the day when their soldiers would come home.
My words had no effect on Ami. He ran to our officers, obtained
a special pass and headed for the parking lot on our outpost. Then
came the struggle to repair his car, which had been hit during a bombardment.
He crawled under the car, vigorously cursing the neighbor. I was afraid
his uncontrollable rage would land him in another scuffle.
It was not every day that he wrapped himself in a cloak of
raging righteousness. There had been days when he shirk his assignments,
when he disappeared for hours on end and then had only flimsy pretexts to
offer as an excuse. On days when the bombs fell hard, he had refused
several times to drive to perimeter positions and left to other drivers the
task of delivering supplies. He complained of mysterious pains in his
stomach and aches in his joints brought on by jarring drives over pocked
roads. Night ambushes terrified him, and he vowed he would never take
part in setting another.
The officers went hunting for him,boasting to the platoon that
he too would have to lie with the others among the rocks, once they laid
hands on him. But none of them ever succeeded in dispatching Ami Aviram
to a night-time ambush. I would eavesdrop on his serpentine evasions
and clandestine man-to-man talks with the officers by the trenches behind
the carriage, and I knew that once again he would outwit us all, the men,
the officers and even he who, invisible above, spins our fates.
When it came to merrymaking, he had no peer. For his fertile,
mischievous imagination, no distance was too far and no time limit a restraint
on his hunger for pleasure.
Returning from a raiding drill in the middle of the night,
we would collapse in exhaustion; he would wheel his car past the expiring
platoon and gaily call out, "Well, guys, who is coming with me to Tel
Aviv?"
I once drove with him to spend a winter night in Tel Aviv.
It was a three hour trip in each direction. The streets were
deserted and a damp, doleful veil shrouded the city.
Ami shuttled me mercilessly from his friend's cafe to the movie
theater where, it goes without saying, he immediately antagonized two youths
and their dates reeking of perfume. It started when we took their seats
in the center of the row.
When they asked us to move, we refused and they angrily called
for the usher. I was humiliated by the entire incident while the girls
stood to the side in embarrassment, but Ami rose from his seat and asked
in a voice heard throughout the cinema, "Is this how you treat soldiers from
the Golan Heights? Is this how you welcome fighting men who have left their
bunkers for a few hours, for whom Tel Aviv exists only as a memory? Shame
on you."
The audience murmured its support for us against the swaggering
youths who had behaved so intolerably. "Poor soldiers. Why don't you
move aside for them? Just look at them." Fortunately for the
boys, they were wise enough to give in.
Swearing under their breath, they left to search for unoccupied
seats. I glanced at Ami and realized that he had been spoiling for
a fight. He had deliberately baited the boys in the hope they would
fly off the handle and throw the first punches.
It was a boring film, which we left soon afterwards. Ami
passed the boys and said, "So long, you heroes. Now you can overrun
your assigned seats. The army is retreating from the theater." As
we stepped onto the wet sidewalk, Ami broke out into a hearty laugh and began
to dance in front of passing cars and astonished pedestrians.
We drove next to the basketball arena. Ami, who was familiar
with some of the better-known players, invited me to watch them play. I
was dead tired, what with a killer day of training, the assault drill and
this lark of a trip. I yawned and yawned. I thought, I'll just
drift off to sleep in the car, and what will be will be. But Ami would
not leave me alone. "That's the beauty of this littlecountry," he said.
"A few hours ago, we were stuck in some God-awful trench eyeball to
eyeball with the Syrian army, and here we are now in the bright lights of
Tel Aviv. Don't fall asleep on me.
Tomorrow, I'll help you dig through stacks of newspapers for
your collection of names."
He was mocking my morbid fixation. It was months since
the last battle but I carry on as though the war never ended. I keep
clipping names from the papers.
There is no end to the names. Each time I look, I discover
new names, and each new name I find casts a faint shadow over me. Ami,
who understood my grim occupation, tried hard to nudge me into his overheated
night life, whether the dance clubs on the Tiberias waterfront or any place
else he could reach in his thimble of a car. To him, our term of military
service seemed like a prolonged battle against dates and times. To
put it
plainly, he hoped to get through it with drunken jaunts, chance adventures
with women and sleep. One night, while we were in the dance hall on
the shore of the Sea of Galilee, we met the little teacher from Tiberias
and her friend.
Ami got up to dance with the little teacher while I sat and
talked with Rina or Dina, whose name I can never remember. She was curious
to know what we had done during the war. I answered curtly, for my
mind wandered, her questions irritated me and I could not bring myself to
give her a serious reply. She was insulted, of course, and complained
to the little teacher. I was angry at myself for offending her without
cause
and falling in with Ami's frivolous company. Ami interrupted his dance to
pay me a visit. "Be a mensch," he said with a smile. "What has this
teacher done to you? She didn't start the war, did she?"
I knew in my heart that I had done her an injustice. Who
knows, perhaps her brother's| name was among those I had collect from my
newspaper files. We had already heard of such startling cases these
past months. Not long ago, one of the most widely read evening papers published
the pitiful account of a woman who was dedicating her life to the search
for her lost brother. That piece brought tears to the eyes of their
readers. I mastered my gloom and invited her to take a spin around
the dance floor.
After all, who was I to divine the intentions of the fate
spinner?
4.
Following his return from that pleasure trip to the shores of
Sinai, Ami shut himself up with me in the carriage barracks on the little
platoon post. We sat on the closely-spaced couch while Ami chided me
for what I had missed. "You're a real jerk, astick in the mud. You
let all that slip through four fingers. Now I have to tell you all
about the trip.
You'll be sorry for a long time to come that you didn't have
the courage to go south with me and the two
lovely teachers."
He did tell me all about it, as I though I had commissioned
a full report from him.
"And we met all sorts of terrific people there, Jewish soldiers
and civilians from all parts of the country. Too bad you didn't see
your fellow countrymen for what they really are and how they're pulling
themselves together so quickly from the terrible shock of the war. You
wouldn't believe the ridiculous lengths they go to to avoid their grief and
depression." I listened to his account in wonder. I did not know
whether he was telling me what he actually had seen or only what he had wanted
to see.
Or perhaps it was what he thought I would have seen had I
accompanied him and the two teachers. No matter, it was difficult to
rely on anything he said. He had a natural bent for exaggeration, and
his descriptions always varied, intentionally or not, from the way things
truly were.
"We didn't spend all our nights on the coast at Nueba. We
went looking for a place to stay in Eilat our last night and found the soldiers'
hospitality center.
It was already very late when we reached the city, and then
it got dark right away. We kept driving until we stopped at the airport.
The girls were worn out, what they reallywanted was a hot shower and
the comforts of home. You can imagine how they felt after three straight
days and nights of hot sex deep in the sweet sands of Nueba.
In the end, we changed our minds about driving through the night.
No one was waiting for us back here or knew we were in Eilat, not the
families up north, the guys on the base or the students at the grade school
in Tiberias. If we wanted, we could extend our fling again and again.
We could stretch it out forever. And believe me, we wouldn't
be punished for this.
"When we arrived at the hospitality center, we realized that
we could not sleep together but would have to spend the night in separate
rooms, the men in ours and the girls, who looked like soldiers on leave,
in theirs. The teachers weren't sorry about that. I saw in their eyes that
they had had their fill of lovemaking under the desert stars. Still,
after all the uninhibited fun we had enjoyed those past days, it felt strange
suddenly bumping into the army's rigid rules of conduct in the soldiers'
home."
"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked him. "Patience,"
Ami replied.
"Just wait and you'll soon find out. We began settling
in and what does fate want of me?
In the room next to ours, I met someone I knew. You could
call him a neighbor who is also a friend. I would never have imagined
that we might meet there. From what I had recently heard from his family,
he had been stuck for months across the Suez Canal.
"There was an awkward moment of uncertainty. He was surprised
to see me and I was amazed to come across him in Eilat. Everything
became clear only after we sat down and had a drink in the club. Just
like me, he was involved, almost against his will, in a fine little escapade.
Forget the false reports in the center'sbooks and the misleading articles
in the unit's papers. He had no respect for those. But what had
he said at home? What did he tell his wife? What story did he give his children
pining away for him? Even a heart of stone can break with longing."
"Who's talking?" I said. "Look who's talking." Ami laughed.
"You see? I'm not even the worst. At least I don't deprive
my children. You think I'm the most perverted guy out there? There
are others as disgusting as I am. You should have seen him blush and
stammer. We sat and drank and laughed at ourselves. A pair of sly,
cheating lechers, that's how we saw ourselves. Just like the movies.
"Tea and cake were served after dinner. A local singer, accompanied
by some volunteers, tried to entertain the soldiers but everyone was too
glum to join in the singing. Later, the men crowded around the television
set to watch a soccer match against the French team. Then we heard
a commotion in the common room. The little teacher and her friend had
come from the bath all scented and made up, and wearing almost nothing. 'Where
are your uniforms, girls?' someone shouted. There was a moment of confusion
until I broke in, 'Let the poor things be. If you only knew how we've
suffered traveling these last days. That grueling route from the canal
really killed us.' The guy apologized and the girls breathed a sigh
of relief. My little teacher looked stunning. I think I'll drive
to Tiberias to meet her again soon."
I sat, shriveled, across from him on the narrow army couch
in the antique carriage barracks. It was cold. The heaters had flickered
out and a savage wind howled outside.
Rina or Dina or whatever they call her undoubtedly had feasted
her soft, trusting eyes on the fellow whom Ami had found for her as my
last-minute replacement. I had refused, because I. . .I have morals
which I would have violated had I thrown in my lot with that band of vacuous
fun-seekers.
Yes, though I yearned in my soul to loll with them on the warm
shores of Sinai, one bachelor among many, cut off from everything that ties
me to my life, isolated from my family, far from the stacks of newspapers
I hoard and pore through again each day to see if some name has been omitted
from my list. One tourist among others passing through life, or across
the reflection of it, in one fluid, easy motion.
Why does he abuse me, the hidden spinner of fates? He entangles
me in webs of morals from which I cannot escape even in the brief instant
of nothingness that is war and withholds from me the blameless teacher from
Tiberias whose name I can never remember.
"But wait," said Ami. "That's not all. After the soccer game,
a small group of us remained in the club. One soldier who had come
from the sector where the Third Army was trapped began to tell us, in a hoarse
voice, what he had seen and felt, things he remembered and would never forget.
His plain, quiet words made our jaws drop. We had been this close
to disaster, all of us, and hadn't known it.
The girls cried like babies, they didn't seem to notice
the make-up streaking their faces. And what about me? I was my usual
self and tried to comfort the young soldier with my usual jokes. But
he was in another world. That's when I thought of you, pathetic, cautious
and careful, and how you hadn't dared come with us on
the joy ride which, by the way, was my treat. Even the soft drinks
we bought the soldier mourning his buddies, and the snacks at the center
and the breakfast we ate there in the morning before heading north.
"We sat in the empty dining room. All the soldiers had gotten
up early to leave for the airport. They were all hurrying home or to
their units. Only we had nothing on the burner. The teachers
were still upset by the stories the sad soldier had told the night before.
But I bucked up their spirits. If we all sit around crying or pawing
through piles of papers like you, who would screw in Nueba's sands of
love?"
I thought to myself that there was always, always something
surprising in Ami Aviram's stories, something left untold and that perhaps
had not even happened.
It's very much like each time I find neglected names that the
unseen spinner of fates has sown in the bundles of newspapers I
clip.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
The Resurrected
by
Elisha Porat
Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks
I.
Once, while I was waiting at the central
bus station in Jerusalem, a woman of
about 60 came up, said hello and wished me well. I
returned the greeting but wondered how she knew me. She drew closer and said
that for all the years that had passed, she remembered me as if we had parted
only yesterday.
"When was that?" I asked her. "Just who are
you, and how do we know one another?"
She clapped me on the back and said that I had not changed
a bit. The gray in my hair merely added to my charm and vitality. How
was it that I did not remember her, Sarah, the brave Yemenite woman from
the Jerusalem ETZEL battalion? After all, it was I who had crouched
below her while she scaled the wall to set the explosive charges. Had I forgotten
that as well? Did I not remember the mad, panicked flight from the
wall when so many had been wounded? And the damned cease action order,
the cause of all that grief, had I no memory of that either?
I was stunned. More than once, people had mistaken me
for someone else and hailed me to say hello. Out of politeness, I had
returned the salutation.
Later, I would crack my head half the day trying to recall,
who was that, when had we met, where do I knew him from? Of course,
I cannot speak of their forgotten names and discarded noms deguerre. But
a sapper in the Jerusalem ETZEL battalion? Nothing in the world could
be easier to disprove, for I had never served in the Palmach or in the Hagana.
I had been but a boy then, and called into the Israel Defense Forces only
in the 1950's when I reached the age of induction set by the Defense Service
Act of 1949. While in the army, I had served in a rear echelon unit
of which I prefer not to say very much. To this day, I am somewhat
ashamed of what I did in that unit while the cream of our youth spent their
days in trenches on the border.
Here was another case of mistaken identity . Besides, she had
aged me by a full decade. I forgave her for that. Many people wrongly
think me older than I am. But where did she come up with these bizarre
recollections? Breaching the walls of the old city--I? A bitter rear
guard action and bloody pull-back --who me? The fallen comrades, the
damned order--was I in all that? The slim volume of our history surely
included the whole story. But what had I to do with any of this?
As often happens to me, my thoughts came too late. I
wanted to answer her, but she had already vanished into the crowd of travelers
waiting in the station. I edged out of the jam-packed line. Although
I knew that I was wasting my time and delaying my trip to the coastal region,
I had to lean against the station wall. I had to survey the passengers'
faces and gradually tame the turmoil that Sarah the courageous Yemenite had
visited on my peace of mind.
I remembered a similar incident that had occurred some years
earlier. I was walking on a street
in Tel Aviv on some petty shopping
errand when a man my own age suddenly accosted me and insisted that I was
a long-lost friend. For all my protests that I was neither hisfriend
nor the friend's cousin, indeed, I had never heard of them, the fellow beseeched
me with a desperate loss of faith that I found deeply touching. "It's
not possible, it just isn't possible," he repeated. "The same thinning
hair, the same stubble, the same two-day growth never touched by a razor."
When I tried to convince him that similar faces can be misleading,
especially if you hadn't seen them for many years, he burst out," It isn't
just the face or the body. You speak just like him. The same
hissing diction, the very same hoarse voice. The same twitch on your
face and exactly the same twist to your curling lips."
I was neither his friend nor the friend's cousin,
indeed, I had never heard of them, the fellow beseeched me with a desperate
loss of faith that I found deeply touching. "It's not possible, it
just isn't possible," he repeated. "The same thinning hair, the same stubble,
the same two-day growth never touched by a razor." When I tried to
convince him that similar faces can be misleading, especially if you hadn't
seen them for many years, he burst out," It isn't just the face or the body.
You speak just like him. The same hissing diction, the very same hoarse
voice. The same twitch on your face and exactly the same twist to your curling
lips."
I had felt very uncomfortable then. With difficulty,
I separated from my misguided admirer. Had we not entered a shop where I
was known and one of my old friends worked, I would not have managed to shake
him off. He was so dependent on me, he begged so for me to recognize
him and share with him the distant years of our friendship, that it felt
awful to break away and tell him again and again, "I don't know you. We've
never met. I don't know what you want from me." I was truly sorry for
his pain when I saw on his face how he gradually bowed to the truth and began
to admit to me and to himself that a sad mistake may have been made. In
the end, we became such good friends that we exchanged addresses and telephone
numbers. Smiles, slaps on the back, some words of encouragement.
"It's nothing, these things happen. No one these days is immune
to mistakes. This was a sad, little mistake. There are much more painful
errors."
But the words of Sarah the Yemenite went straight to my heart,
kindling a storm that could not quickly be calmed. A man finishes a grueling
week of studies in Jerusalem, then rushes to the bus station for the trip
to his house on the coastal plain to make Shabbat with his wife and his children
and the oaks in the yard; how is it possible that while he is hurrying home,
and his mind is already somewhere between the lawns and the red tiled roofs,
a plain Jerusalem woman stops him, cloaks him in an imaginary past and wrongly
takes him for an ETZEL lad who crouched below the wall to the old city and
boosted to his shoulder the brave sapper who would toss an explosive charge
above the barricaded gate? Why didn't I hasten to answer her, "Sarah,
you are mistaken. I am not the boy you knew back in '48. I'm
not even from Jerusalem. I'm from the plain, from a village near Hadera.
I'm finishing my required subjects, that's all. Don't turn my world upside
down. Let me go in peace to my little house among the orchards." It
seemed to me that I saw the shadowy image of the Jerusalem woman slipping
away like a furtive gust of wind through the bustling station's
teeming
platforms.
II.
One night, I was invited to a party at the home of a well-known
Jerusalem editor. She greeted me warmly and served exotic dishes she had
learned to prepare during her years abroad. While we enjoyed the food
and drink, she introduced a young woman, no beauty yet quite bewitching,
whom she praised as the best rewriter on her editorial staff interested in
more than just the pages she recast. Like the editor, she had kind
words for a story of mine the paper was going to publish. Why, she had fallen
in love with entire passages in it and was eager to discuss it's innovative
structure with me face to face. In this way, our hostess politely but
firmly maneuvered us together, cheek to jowl at the little table in the corner
of her cramped salon where we might whisper oblivious to the buzz and hum
of the guests around us.
The rewriter asked my name and inquired into my age and line
of work. She was amazed that a man like me would forsake an established
life in the plain to dart between Jerusalem's yeshivas and seminaries in
search of balm for the wounds festering in my soul. Still, the story
I had submitted was very fine and she believed I ought to continue writing
despite the demands yeshiva society made on my time. She found in my
story something protean yet powerful.
"Now that we meet in person," she said, "I see in you the same
contrasting qualities of putty and steel. Your appearance bears an
astonishing resemblance to the language of the story." For my part,
I was more than a little surprised by the familiar tone she adopted. Dumb
with confusion, I sat across from her and felt the first twinges of a powerful
and mutual attraction.
After a long conversation battered by the surrounding din,
we left for the bus stop below the house. She was going to her home
on the edge of Jerusalem while I had to return to my little dormitory room.
The volume I was studying lay open on my desk, beside it the notebook
in which I scribbled thoughts my reading provoked and observations drawn
outside the confines of the volume's densely printed pages. We boarded
the late-night bus and sat side by side. As if by chance, her shoulder
brushed me, then she half swung her body to me and her thighs pressed hard
against my own. I don't know where I found the courage, but I took
the plunge and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. It was clear at
once that we were headed to her small apartment on the city's outskirts.
The volume open on my desk and the notebook at its side would await my return,
perhaps that night, perhaps at dawn, perhaps not until the following day
if things went well between us.
We got off at the last stop and, locked in passionate embrace,
made our way to her door. How astounded I was by her request to make
love in deathly silence. How I marveled at the efforts she made to
choke back her moans.
How sweet were the fingers she placed on my lips so I, too,
would not cry out when the final ecstasy possessed me. Afterwards, we rose
and dressed and returned to the building doorway, where the hot-blooded copy
editor showed me a little hutch of white rabbits the tenants permitted her
to keep.
She drew me behind the building, to the small inner yard where
some flower beds she tended gave the Jerusalem night a sharp scent, and a
few vegetables, mangled by the neighborhood children, eventually fed to the
rabbits.
I asked her to explain the silence on which she insisted in
bed. She had a roommate, she said, a fine young woman studying social
work at the university who was about to marry her sweetheart and leave for
a job in one of the development towns in the south. Out of a deep sense of
pity, she would not sully for this splendid young woman whatever life in
the big city had not yet spoiled. For some reason, I remarked that
I understood all the nonsense if that was the case. Her explanation
justified the strange precautions she had taken to assure our silence, even
if we had been forced to make love like mice. But I never imagined
that she would ask me to slink out of the building without a sound. Nor
did I know that she would beg me to postpone the shower I craved till a later
hour or, better yet, until returning to my cubby-hole in the dorms.
Her final words enraged me, just as her efforts to preserve
the hush of her bed had roused in me a secret fury. I rose from the bed,
dressed hastily and told her, very loudly, that one could hear the same thing
in the other tiny apartments in that crowded building. I was no longer
a boy, it was years since I had indulged in one-night stands. I had long
since wearied of ridiculous affairs like these. Her behavior reminded
me of an incident buried in my youth.
Rising to her feet, the copy editor seized me and implored
me to lower my voice. But I was drunken with anger you might say and
loose with my words.
"Listen," I persisted like a stubborn child, "I once went for
a walk with my girlfriend in the hills of Jerusalem. As darkness fell, we
arrived at a small, forgotten kibbutz called 'Ma'aleh HaHamisha.' It
was almost off the map, so it seemed to me. The houses gripped a cliff
to avoid sliding down the steep slope. Encountering the kibbutz chairman,
were quested a room for the night. 'By all means,' he replied, 'we
have a guest cabin. Here is the key, here the water pitcher, there the kerosene
lamp in case the electricity is off.' He led us to the cabin and opened
the door to the middle room. Then he wished us good night and went
on his way. The two of us, hungering for love the same as you and I,
did not even wait for the echoes of his footsteps to die on the pavement.
We fell on each other at once, sank to the ratty mattress spread on
the floor beneath us and rolled around to the sound of our cries of passion.
We utterly forgot where in the world we were."
The rewrite editor watched me with darkening eyes. Had
I not been so big and strong, she would simply have taken hold of me and
sent me flying through the window. I already heard the voice of the pure
social worker calling, "Who's there? What's all that noise? Ilana,
is that you? Do you need help?"
"Just a moment," I shouted across the door to the unseen mob
that no doubt had gathered outside to hear my tale. "One moment, let
me go on with the story. Suspicious rustlings stirred on the other
side of the cabin's walls. My beloved thought we should peek outside, perhaps
mice were nibbling on the thin wooden slats. But I was brave lad in
those days and said, 'Give me the lamp, I'm going outside to look.' I
grabbed the lamp and flung open the doors to the rooms on either side of
us. None of you will believe what my eyes beheld."
"Ilana, is that you? Ilana, has something happened? Do
you need anything?" the roommate called to us. The copyeditor answered, "No,
no, everything's OK. You can go back to your room."
I raised my voice like a street corner preacher, turned to
the window, opened it wide and shouted, "You won't believe what my eyes beheld.
The two other rooms were full of drunken kibbutz workers sprawled nak_d
and sweating, all of them squinting through cracks and holes in the splintered
partition. They were panting with desire to glimpse my girlfriend lying
n_de on the tattered mattress. 'You damn perve_ts, what stinking corpses
you are,' I waved the lamp at them. 'You dirty Peeping Toms, you vermin,
you filthy swine.' I choked on the fury lodged in my throat. I kicked their
sweating bodies and threatened the surprised workmen, in a voice not my own,
'I'll burn this cabin down on you!'"
Suddenly, I was baffled by my boisterous behavior. I
burst half-dressed out of Ilana the rewrite editor's apartment. To
her stunned look, I streaked past the fine young roommate and down the stairs.
The chilly air outside lashed at my chest. I stopped in my tracks,
sniffing the scents of a wadi and the resin aroma of a copse of pines close
by. The block was pitch black, swathed in wisps of mist and low, sodden
clouds, and the night breeze carried distant sounds. I completely lost
my way. I didn't know how to get out, which direction led to the city
and which to the road. Cursing the absurdity of my situation, I began
to walk briskly along an unfinished street until a gap suddenly yawned beneath
my feet. I saw that the road and the street had come to an end, with
the city nowhere in sight. I craned my head heavenward in search of
help, but the low wisps of cloud obscured the stars. I was forlorn, I had
no idea where in the world I was.
Then I saw lights in a window nearby. I gave up, knocked
and asked for help. The door opened and Miss Sarah, the courageous
Yemenite, appeared at the threshold in some sort of night gown. She
recognized me at once and said, "A Palmachnik like you lost in the night?
What about those scouting courses you took years ago? What about those
those long nights you spent on orientation hikes? We didn't go astray like
this back in '48."
I told her my strange account. "Its nothing, Palmachnik,"
she laughed.
"Everything will be just fine." She took me back to the
street and directed me in the clipped manner of those early years. "Turn
right here, left here, then go straight and you're back on the main road
into town. You can get a taxi there." I thanked here and vowed, "Miss
Sarah, we will meet again. Meanwhile, many thanks. But I was not with
you there, in the Jerusalem ETZEL battalion. It was not I who kneeled down
so you could throw the
explosive packs." She laughed again. "It's nothing. Each of us
must hide from someone. And each of us must mold his past anew with
his own hands. I wish you good night." Then she vanished into
the blanket of fog.
III.
Our final encounter was the most surprising. Taking a
break from important matters, I was plodding through the stalls of Hadera's
little market. As I walked, I glanced at the heaps of fruit and flopping
fish already beginning to stink. Suddenly, I saw two women, their faces
aglow with delight, flapping their arms at me. Very properly dressed
and made-up they were, and carrying handsome purses. Just as I was,
in rough sandals and shorts, I came closer and greeted them, wondering all
the while who they were.
"Hello, Palmachnik," one of them approached me, "have you already
forgotten? I'm Sarah, from Jerusalem." I rushed to her in joy. "Hello,
Miss Sarah," I said, "what brings you down from the lofty mountains of
Jerusalem
to the low plains of Hadera?" Sarah explained that she and her sister
were attending a family wedding in the Nahali'el quarter of town.
In all her years in Israel, however, she had never been to
our hamlet and was especially glad to run into me as they had just lost their
way in the streets. From many kind people, they had learned how far
the Nahali'el section was and feared, much to their sorrow and shame, that
the moment of the ceremony had nearly passed.
I gave them a hand, slowly leading them through Hadera's narrow
streets north to the Nahali'el quarter. "You and your sister have nothing
to worry about," I told Sarah. "Heaven was smiling on you when you
found me. It is my pleasure to guide you on my free hour right to the
hupa." The two overdressed Yemenite ladies from Jerusalem trailed behind
me like a pair of infants toddling to the playground. Sarah extolled
the virtues of Jerusalem in disparagement of the villages of the plain, which
were not only a journey of many hours from home but also as alike as twins.
From Nahariya to Kiryat Gat, the same avenues, the same shops, the
same bus stations. Suppose you close your eyes, surrender yourself
to the swaying of the bus and catch a short nap; if you wake up and find
yourself riding on the main street of town, you simply cannot tell whether
you are in Gadera or Hadera.
I laughed in agreement, then I reminded her of old memories,
of that night when I had wandered bewildered and lost in her neighborhood
floating within an oasis of clouds.
She nudged her sister and asked, "Do you remember? Do
you remember how I told you about the strange young man I met one night?"
"Is that him?" asked the sister. "The one you said seemed
risen from the grave to bring back to life the days of the siege and the
battle for the city?"
"What's this, Miss Sarah?" I jumped in. "Are you so quick
to kill off your acquaintances?"
Sarah went pale and stopped. Some things were not to be repeated
before strangers, she instructed, just as there were matters better left
unsaid even between sisters.
Her sister, humiliated by the indiscretion that had slipped
through her lips, tried to make up for her blunder. Unmoved, Sarah begged
my pardon.
Anyway, what was my name?
Here we had chatted politely all this time and they had yet
to hear my name.
Soon we would arrive at the wedding and she still would
not know who I was before I disappeared again.
"Abshalom," I said. "My friends call me Avsha
for short."
The two sisters gasped in surprise. Clinging to one another,
they stared at me in fear. "Abshalom? Are you sure? How can this
be, Abshalom?" Sarah demanded. "Tell the truth, what do you know?
Tell me the truth," she suddenly raised her voice, "enough of this
strange game you're playing with us. Who are you really? Were
you or were you not in ETZEL's Jerusalem battalion? Did you or did
you not stand below me the night we broke into the old city? Is that
you, Avsha, from the battalion's sapper platoon? Tell the truth, are
you Abshalom who was killed later in that battle on the hill near Bet Shemesh?
Are you Abshalom the living or Avsha the dead playing tricks on us?"
"But Miss Sarah," I squeezed her hand hard, "I am Abshalom,
but most certainly not the one you and your sister believe I am. I've
already told you I was a boy during the War of Independence. I was
drafted into the army only after the Sinai campaign in 1956. I can
show you photos and documents. What is it with you two ladies? Have
you stuffed your heads with superstitions? Whoever heard of the dead
rising from their graves to stroll at liberty through the Hadera market?
Look at me, ladies, come a little closer; do I really have the face
of the resurrected? Now let's go a bit faster, or you'll miss the wedding
in Nahali'el."
They huddled still more closely, clasped one another by the
hand, lowered their gaze and followed me like docile sheep. From time
to time, they threw me a suspicious glance, evading my face but studying
me from my balding head to my sagging belly. I could not restrain myself
and asked myself aloud, "How is it possible to make such a mistake? How
can someone, right in the middle of the street, suddenly take another for
a young fellow who died so many years before? Had he aged exactly like
me? Tell me your opinion, ladies, did his hair turn white like mine?
Was he losing his hair like me? Were his muscles going slack
like mine? Look, he was a fearless sapper in the first wave of attackers,
not a goldbrick like me wasting his time in the army behind stands of waffles
and soft drinks. Had anyone ever heard such a crazy story?
And the similarity of our names? There are a thousand
ways to account for that, and another thousand to explain the resemblance
of our nicknames. So what if every Abshalom in the country is called
Avsha by his buddies?"
We passed between the little houses of Hadera and soon heard
sounds of rejoicing rising from a yard in
Nahali'el. I directed the wayward sisters to the garden gate but refused
their invitation to enter and join in their relatives' celebration. "This
is it for me," I said. All in all, it was I who should feel indebted
to Miss Sarah, for rescuing me from a tough spot that night. Sarah
pressed my hand and said, "Enough, Abshalom. Don't mention Jerusalem,
say nothing of that night. Every word you speak only makes me more
confused. And my sister is of no help in clearing up the mystery.
You see before you a foolish woman. On those nights when the
ETZEL battalion went into action, she clung to our parents' legs, may they
rest in peace. Every shell exploding in the city scared her out of
her wits."
I bade them farewell. I saw how Sarah urged her sister
to hurry along so they could inform the celebrants of their arrival. But
her sister, not to be rushed, halted at the latch to the gate. Then
she glanced back at me to see if I was still striding to the sidewalk or
would suddenly spread secret, dormant wings and soar to the foot of Jerusalem's
walls, beneath the old city's barricaded gate.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
More works by Elisha Porat
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