Leon Uris (57 page)

Kitty was leaning over the fence gazing at the beauty and proud achievement that Yad El represented. She looked radiant. Ari was filled with a desire to take her in his arms and hold her, but he did nothing and said nothing. They turned away together and walked along the fence until they came to the barn buildings, where the cackle of chickens and the honk of a goose met their ears. He opened the gate. The hinge was broken.

“That needs fixing,” he said. “A lot of things need fixing. I’m away all the time and Jordana is gone too. My father is away at conferences so much. I’m afraid the Ben Canaan farm has become a village liability. The whole
moshav
has the responsibility. Someday we are all going to be home together ... then you’ll really see something.” They stopped by a hogpen where a sow lay panting in the mud as a dozen gluttonous pigs fought to get at her teats. “Zebras,” Ari said.

“If I wasn’t an old zebra expert I’d swear I was looking at pigs,” Kitty answered.

“Shhh ... not so loud. There might be someone from the Land Fund eavesdropping. We aren’t supposed to raise ... zebras ... on Jewish national land. Up at Gan Dafna the children call them pelicans. At the
kibbutz
they are more realistic. They are spoken of as comrades.”

They walked beyond the barn, chicken house and machinery shed to the edge of the fields.

“You can see Gan Dafna from here.” Ari stood behind her and pointed to the hills near the Lebanese border.

“Those white houses?”

“No, that’s an Arab village called Abu Yesha. Now look to the right of it and farther up where those trees are, on the plateau.”

“Oh yes, I see it now. My, it’s really up in the air. What is that building behind it on top of the hill?”

“Fort Esther, a British border station. Come along. I have something else to show you. “

They walked through the fields as it began to turn dusk, and the sun played strange tricks of coloring on the hills. They came to a wooded area on the edge of the fields where a stream rushed past toward the Huleh Lake.

“Your colored people in America sing very pretty spirituals about this stream.”

“Is this the Jordan?”

“Yes.”

Ari moved close to Kitty and they looked solemnly at each other. “Do you like it? Do you like my parents?” Kitty nodded. She waited for Ari to take her in his arms. His hands touched her shoulders.

“Ari! Ari! Ari!” a voice shouted from a distance. He released Kitty and spun around. A horse and rider were racing toward them, framed by the dying red sun. Soon they could make out the figure, the straight back, and the flaming hair.

“Jordana!”

She pulled the frothing horse to a halt, threw up both her arms and screamed for joy and leaped down on Ari so hard they both crashed to the ground. Jordana climbed on top of Ari and smothered his face with kisses.

“Cut it out,” he protested.

“Ari! I love you to pieces!”

Jordana began to tickle him and they rolled over wrestling. Ari was forced to pin her down to hold her still. Kitty watched with amusement. Suddenly Jordana saw her and her expression froze. Ari, remembering Kitty’s presence, smiled sheepishly and helped Jordana to her feet.

“My overwrought young sister. I think she mistook me for David Ben Ami.”

“Hello, Jordana,” Kitty said, “I feel as though I know you, from David ...” She extended her hand.

“You are Katherine Fremont. I have heard of you, too.”

The handshake was cold and Kitty was puzzled. Jordana turned quickly and picked up the reins of her horse and led him back toward the house as Ari and Kitty followed.

“Did you see David?” Jordana turned and asked Ari.

“He is in Jerusalem for a few days. He told me to say he would phone you tonight and he will be here by the end of the week, unless you want to go to Jerusalem.”

“I can’t with those new children at Gan Dafna.”

Ari winked at Kitty. “Oh,” he continued to Jordana, “by the way, I saw Avidan in Tel Aviv. He did mention something or the other about ... now let me see ... yes, about transferring David to the Galilee Brigade at Ein Or.”

Jordana turned. Her blue eyes widened and for an instant she was unable to speak. “Ari, you mean it? You’re not teasing me!”

Ari shrugged. “Silly girl.”

“Oh, I hate you! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know it was that important.”

Jordana was about to jump on Ari and wrestle with him again, but Kitty’s presence obviously restrained her. “I am so happy,” she said.

Another dinner was forced upon Kitty, who did her best by it when it became apparent that refusal would come close to creating an international incident. When dinner was done Sarah brought out tables full of snacks for the company that would be arriving.

That evening almost everyone at Yad El came to the Ben Canaan home to welcome Ari and to satisfy curiosity about the American woman. There was, in discreet Hebrew, excited speculation. They were a rugged and friendly lot of people and they went out of their way to make Kitty feel like visiting nobility. Ari hovered near her during the evening with the intent of protecting her from a torrent of questions but marveled at the ease with which Kitty was able to handle the pressing group.

As the evening wore on Jordana became more obvious in the coldness she had shown Kitty earlier. She was hostile and Kitty knew it. She could almost read Jordana’s thoughts ... “What kind of a woman are you who wants my brother?”

It was exactly what Jordana Ben Canaan was thinking as she watched Kitty perform perfectly, charming the curious farmers of Yad El. Kitty looked like all the soft, white, useless wives of English officers who spent their days at tea and gossip around the King David Hotel.

It was very late when the last guest left and Ari and Barak were alone and able to speak. They talked at length about the farm. It was running well despite their absences. The
moshav
saw to it that little was neglected during the protracted leaves of Ari, Jordana, and Barak.

Barak looked around the room for a cognac bottle with something left in it amid the shambles of the welcome-home gathering. He poured his son a glass and one for himself. Both of them settled down and stretched their long legs out and relaxed.

“Well, what about your Mrs. Fremont? We are all bursting with curiosity.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. She is in Palestine in the interest of a girl who came over on the
Exodus
. I understand she is anxious to adopt the child later. We have become friends.”

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing.”

“I like her, Ari. I like her very much, but she is not our kind. Did you see Avidan in Tel Aviv?”

“Yes. I will be staying in the Huleh Palmach at Ein Or most likely. He wants to do an assessment of the strength of each village.”

“That is good. You have been away so much it will do
ema
good to be able to fuss over you for a while.”

“What about you, Father?”

Barak scratched his red beard and sipped his cognac. “Avidan has asked me to go to London for the conferences.”

“I imagined he would.”

“Of course we must keep stalling and fighting to gain a political victory. The Yishuv can’t take a military showdown, so I’ll go to London and add my bit. I hate to say it but I am finally coming to the conclusion that the British are going to sell us out completely.”

Ari arose and began pacing the room. He was almost sorry that Avidan hadn’t sent him away on another assignment. At least when he was working the clock around to complete a mission he did not have time to think of the realities ready to crush the Yishuv.

“Son, you had better go to Abu Yesha and see Taha.”

“I was surprised he wasn’t here tonight. Is something wrong?”

“Just what is wrong with the whole country. We have lived in peace with the people of Abu Yesha for twenty years. Kammal was my friend for a half a century. Now ... there is a coldness. We know them all by first names, we have visited their homes, and they have attended our schools. We have celebrated weddings together. Ari, they are our friends. Whatever is wrong must be righted.”

“I will see him tomorrow after I take Mrs. Fremont to Gan Dafna.”

Ari leaned against the bookcases filled with classics in Hebrew, English, French, German, and Russian. He ran his fingers over them a moment and hesitated, then spun around and faced Barak. “I saw Akiva in Jerusalem.”

Barak stiffened as though he had been struck. In reflex his lips parted for an instant, but he stopped the words that would have asked how his brother was. “We will not discuss him under my roof,” Barak said softly.

“He has grown old. He cannot live too much longer. He begs for you to make peace with him in the name of your father.”

“I do not want to hear it!” Barak cried with a quiver in his voice.

“Isn’t fifteen years of silence long enough?”

Barak stood up to his towering height and looked into the eyes of his son. “He turned Jew against Jew. Now his Maccabees are turning the people of Abu Yesha against us. God may forgive him but I never will ... never.”

“Please listen to me!”

“Good night, Ari.”

The next morning Kitty said good-by to the Ben Canaan family and Ari drove her from Yad El to the mountain road leading to Gan Dafna. At Abu Yesha, Ari stopped for a moment to have someone inform Taha he would be back in an hour or so.

As their car moved high into the hills Kitty grew more and more eager to see Karen, but at the same time she was apprehensive about Gan Dafna. Was Jordana Ben Canaan playing the role of a jealous sister or was she the forerunner of a kind of people who would be hostile because of their differences? Harriet Saltzman had warned her she was a stranger with no business in Palestine. Everyone and everything seemed to point out this difference. Jordana unsettled her. Kitty had tried to be sociable to everyone but perhaps underneath she was drawing lines and too thinly disguising the fact. I am what I am, Kitty thought, and I come from a place where people are judged for what they are.

As they drove into isolation she felt alone and glum.

“I must leave right away,” Ari said.

“Will we be seeing each other?” Kitty asked.

“From time to time. Do you want to see me, Kitty?”

“Yes.”

“I will try then.”

They turned the last corner and the plateau of Gan Dafna spread before them. Dr. Lieberman, the village orchestra, the staff and faculty, and the fifty children from the
Exodus
were all clustered around the bronze statue of Dafna on the center green. There was a warm and spontaneous welcome for Kitty Fremont, and in that moment her fears vanished. Karen rushed up to her and hugged her and handed her a bouquet of winter roses. Then Kitty was engulfed by “her”
Exodus
children. She looked over her shoulder long enough to see Ari disappear.

When the welcoming ceremony was over Dr. Lieberman and Karen walked with Kitty into a tree-studded lane holding the neat little two-and three-room cottages of the staff. They came to a halt halfway down the dirt road before a white stucco house which was deluged in blooms.

Karen ran up on the porch and opened the door and held her breath as Kitty walked in slowly. The combination living room and bedroom was simple but tasteful. The draperies and the spread over the couch bed were of the thick Negev linen weave and the room was almost buried under fresh-cut flowers. A paper cutout was strung from one side to the other: “
SHALOM KITTY
,” it read, and it was from her children of the
Exodus
. Karen ran to the window and pulled the draperies back and revealed a panoramic view of the valley floor two thousand feet below. There was another small room, a study, and a pullman kitchen and bath. Everything had been prepared beautifully. Kitty broke into a smile.

“Shoo, shoo, shoo,” Dr. Lieberman said, whisking Karen out of the door. “You will see Mrs. Fremont later ... shoo, shoo.”

“Good-by, Kitty.”

“Good-by, dear.”

“You like it?” Dr. Lieberman asked.

“I will be very comfortable here.”

Dr. Lieberman sat on the edge of the couch. “When your children from the
Exodus
heard you were coming to Gan Dafna they worked day and night. They painted the cottage, they made the drapes. They brought in plants ... all the plants in Gan Dafna are on your lawn. They made a big fuss. They love you very much.”

Kitty was very touched. “I don’t know why they should.”

“Children are instinctive about knowing who their friends are. You would like to see Gan Dafna now?”

“Yes, I’d love to.”

Kitty stood a head taller than Dr. Lieberman. They strolled back toward the administration buildings. He walked with his hands alternately clasped behind him and patting his pockets, searching for matches to light his pipe.

“I came from Germany in 1933. I guess I knew quite early what was going to happen. My wife passed away shortly after we arrived. I taught humanities at the university until 1940 when Harriet Saltzman asked me to come up here and found a Youth Aliyah village. Actually, I had been longing to do just that for many years. This entire plateau was given to us by the late muktar of Abu Yesha, a most generous man. If only our relations could be a model for all Jews and Arabs ... Do you have a match?”

“No, I’m sorry, not with me.”

“Never mind, I smoke too much.”

They came to the center green where the view of the Huleh Valley was the best. “Our fields are down on the floor of the valley. The land was given to us by the Yad El
moshav
.”

They stopped before the statue. “This is Dafna. She was a girl from Yad El who died in the Haganah. The sweetheart of Ari Ben Canaan. Our village is named for her.”

Kitty felt a flash of—yes, jealousy. The power of Dafna was there even in sculpture. Kitty could see in the bronze that rugged earthiness of a Jordana Ben Canaan and the other farm girls who were in the Ben Canaan home last night.

Dr. Lieberman waved both hands. “In all directions we are surrounded by history. Across the valley you see Mount Hermon and near it is the site of ancient Dan. I could go on for an hour ... it is filled with the past.” The little hunchback looked fondly around at his creation and took Kitty’s arm and led her on.