Leon Uris (75 page)

“Hate you, Ari? Haven’t I made it quite obvious how I feel about you? Please, I’m tired ...”

“What is it? Tell me?”

“I despise myself for caring for you.... Is there anything else you want to know?”

“You can be a terribly complicated woman, Kitty Fremont.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Why do you and I always have to confront each other with our guards up, ready to swing ... ready to run?”

Kitty regarded him steadily for a moment. “Maybe because I don’t live by your simple, uncluttered standards of I-like-you-and-you-like-me-so-let’s-go-to-bed. Page four forty-four of the Palmach manual: boys and girls should not indulge in coyness. Women of Palestine, be forthright. If you love him, sleep with him.”

“We aren’t hypocrites.”

“I’m not so advanced in my thinking as Jordana or your immortal Dafna.”

“Stop it,” Ari snapped. “How do you dare to imply that my sister and Dafna were—tramps? Jordana has loved only one man in her life. Is it wrong to give her love when she does not know if either of them will be alive at the end of the week? Don’t you think I would have preferred to live in peace at Yad El with my Dafna than have her killed by Arab gangs?”

“I don’t live my life as a noble mission. It is very simple with me, Ari. I have to be needed by the man I love.”

“Let’s quit this,” Ari said. “Haven’t I made it plain to you that I needed you?”

Kitty laughed shortly with bitterness. “Yes, you needed me, Ari. You needed me on Cyprus to smuggle forged papers out of Caraolos and you needed me again ... to pull a bullet out of you. It is remarkable, that mind of yours. Even half dead and rolling in pain you could figure out all the angles. You could plot out the course ... fill the truck up with children to avoid suspicion. You didn’t need me, Ari. You needed a candidate to get through the British roadblocks.

“I’m not blaming you,” she continued. “I am the number-one damned fool. We all have our crosses to bear and I guess you are mine. I just can’t take it with the straight-faced unconcern of a
sabra
.”

“Does that make it necessary to treat me like an animal?”

“Yes ... because that’s what you are. You’re a mechanical animal, too infested with the second coming of the Israelites to be a human being. You don’t know the meaning of giving love. You know only fighting. Well, I’m fighting
you
, Brother Ben Canaan, and I’m going to beat you, and I’m going to forget you, in spades.”

Ari remained silent as she walked to the bed and stood over him with tears of anger welling in her eyes. “Some bright day you’re really going to need someone and it’s going to be a terrible thing because you don’t have the capacity to truly ask for help.”

“Why don’t you take that walk?” he said.

“I’m taking it and I’m going to keep on walking. Good Nurse Fremont is through. Somebody from the Palmach will come up to take care of you in a few days. You’ll live till then.”

She spun around and opened the door.

“Kitty, this great vision of man you have ... what do you want?”

“I want a man who knows what it is to cry. I feel sorry for you, Ari Ben Canaan.”

Kitty left Daliyat el Karmil the same morning.

B
RUCE
S
UTHERLAND
had been waiting for Kitty at the Zion Hotel in Haifa for two days. It seemed to her that she had never been happier to see anyone. After dinner Sutherland drove up to Har Hacarmel, the Jewish sector of the city which was spread on the slopes of Mount Carmel.

They went into a night club which was built with a view of Panorama Road, where the city below, the harbor, and the sweep of the bay could be seen to Acre and beyond it, to the hills of Lebanon.

“How’s the girl?”

“Much better, thank you, Bruce. I do appreciate your coming.” She looked at the view. “I came up here to Har Hacarmel the first night I was in Palestine. Ari brought me up. I think our conversation had something to do with living with tension.”

“The Jews here have learned to live under the gun the way you Americans live with baseball. It’s made them a hard lot.”

“This place has got me so I can’t think straight any more. The more I try to reason, the more I am trapped by sentiment and unexplainable forces. I’ve got to get out of here before it swallows me up.”

“Kitty, we know that Dov Landau is safe. He is hiding up at Mishmar. I haven’t told Karen yet.”

“I guess she’s got to know. Bruce, what’s going to happen here?”

“Who knows?”

“You think the UN will give in to the Arabs?”

“There will be a war.”

There was a fanfare at the bandstand. A master of ceremonies came out and told a few stories in Hebrew and then introduced a tall, handsome
sabra
youth. The young man wore the traditional white shirt opened at the throat and he had a black mustache and a small chain was around his neck with a Star of David pendant. He strummed a guitar and sang a song of passionate patriotism about the Jews coming back to their Promised Land.

“I must know what is going to happen at Gan Dafna.”

“The Arabs can raise an army of fifty thousand Palestinians and perhaps twenty thousand irregulars from over the border. There was a chap named Kawukji who led irregulars in the ’36–’39 riots. He’s already busy getting another gang of cutthroats together. It is easier to get arms to the Arabs than to the Jews ... they have friendly territory all around them.”

“And the rest of it, Bruce?” Kitty demanded.

“The rest of it? Egypt and Iraq both have armies of around fifty thousand men. There will be some Saudi Arabian troops in the Egyptian Army. Syria and Lebanon will put another twenty thousand men on the field. Trans-Jordan has the Arab Legion ... crack soldiers with the latest arms. According to present-day definitions the Arabs do not have first-class armies; none the less they have many modern units with artillery, armament, and aircraft.”

“You advised the Haganah, Bruce. What did you tell them?”

“I told them to form a defense line between Tel Aviv and Haifa and try to hold that strip of territory. Kitty, the other side of the picture is not pretty. The Jews have four or five thousand Palmach troops and a paper army of fifty thousand in the Haganah, but they only have ten thousand rifles. The Maccabees can put a thousand men out, no more, with light arms. They have no artillery, their air force is three Piper Cubs, and their navy is those illegal-immigrant runners tied up at Haifa. The Jews are outnumbered in soldiers forty to one, in population a hundred to one, in equipment a thousand to one, and in area five thousand to one. The Haganah has turned down my advice and the advice of every military man who has told them to pull in to a tight defense line. They are going to fight it out at every
moshav
, every
kibbutz
, every village. That means Gan Dafna, too. Do you want to hear any more?”

Kitty’s voice was shaky. “No ... I’ve heard enough. Isn’t it strange, Bruce? One night when I was up on Mount Tabor with those young Palmach people I had the feeling that they were invincible ... the soldiers of God. Firelight and moonlight does things to me.”

“It does to me too, Kitty. Everything I’ve ever learned in my life in the service tells me that the Jews cannot win. Yet when you see what they have done with this land you are not a realist if you do not believe in miracles.”

“Oh, Bruce ... if I only could believe that way.”

“What an army these Jews have! Boys and girls without guns, without rank and uniform, and without pay. The Palmach commander is all of thirty years of age and his three brigade commanders are all under twenty-five. But there are things no military man counts that the Arabs must reckon with. The Jews are willing to lose every man, woman, and child to hold what they have. How much blood are Arabs willing to pay?”

“Can they win? Do you really believe it?”

“Call it divine intervention, if you will, or maybe ... let us say that the Jews have too many Ari Ben Canaans.”

Kitty returned to Gan Dafna the next day. She was surprised to find Jordana Ben Canaan awaiting her in her office. The redheaded
sabra
girl was ill at ease.

“What do you want, Jordana?” Kitty asked coolly. “I’m going to be very busy.”

“We learned what you did for Ari,” Jordana mumbled awkwardly, “and I want to tell you how grateful I am.”

“It seems that your intelligence system is getting information through again. I am sorry I had to delay my departure.”

Jordana blinked but did not answer.

“Don’t take this personally,” Kitty said; “I would have done the same for a wounded dog.”

Kitty made plans to leave. Then Dr. Lieberman induced her to remain an extra few weeks. Extra personnel had been brought in and needed training to handle a hundred more children who had been smuggled into the country by Aliyah Bet. Housing was being put up as quickly as possible. Many of the new children were in bad shape, having been in DP camps for more than two years.

Once more she made her travel plans. Soon there were but two days left before she and Karen were to depart from Gan Dafna and Palestine.

At the end of August in the year 1947 the UNSCOP announced its majority and minority plans from Geneva. Each of the plans called for partition into separate Arab and Jewish entities with Jerusalem to be an international territory. There was no doubt as to the moral issue, for the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine called for the immediate immigration of six thousand Jews a month from the DP camps in Europe and the resumption of land sales to Jews.

The Jews had begged that the Negev Desert be added to their state. The Arabs had millions of square miles of undeveloped wastelands. The Jews wanted this small piece of a few thousand square miles in the hope that they could redeem it. The United Nations committee agreed.

Weary from a half century of heartbreak and sellout, the Yishuv Central and World Zionists announced acceptance of the compromise. The partitioned area, even with the Negev Desert, was an abortion of a state. It was, in fact, three strips of territory linked together by narrow corridors, resembling a chain of sausages. The Arabs had three strips of territory, larger in area, also linked by corridors. The Jews lost their eternal city, Jerusalem. They kept the Sharon and the parts of the Galilee they had pulled out of swamplands. The Negev was wasteland. What was the use of fighting it further? It was a monstrosity but they accepted.

The Jews answered.

So did the Arabs. The partition would mean war, they said.

Despite the Arab threats, the UNSCOP resolved to present the partition plan to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in mid-September.

Every last detail had been taken care of. Again it was the eve of departure for Kitty and for Karen. At dawn Bruce Sutherland would drive them to the Lydda airport, and in the evening they would fly out to Rome. The heavy trunks had already been shipped ahead by boat. The cottage was ready to be vacated.

Kitty sat at her desk in her office with the final folders to be put away into the files. All that she had to do was to put them in the cabinet, close the drawer, and walk out of the door—forever. She opened the first folder and picked up the top paper and looked at her notes.

MINNA (SURNAME UNKNOWN), AGE 7. Minna was born in Auschwitz concentration camp. Neither of her parents is known. We presume she is Polish. She was smuggled into Palestine by Aliyah Bet around the first of the year. When she was brought to Gan Dafna she was physically very weak and sick and showed many disturbances ...

ROBERT DUBUAY, AGE 16. French nationality. Robert was found at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by British troops. Robert was thirteen years of age at the time and weighed fifty-eight pounds. The boy had previously been an eyewitness to the death of his mother, father, and a brother. A sister, who later was a suicide, had been forced into prostitution with German soldiers. Robert shows signs of hostility and ...

SAMUEL KASNOWITZ, AGE 12. Estonian nationality. No known family survived. Samuel was hidden in the basement of a Christian family until he was forced to flee into a forest where he lived alone for two years ...

ROBERTO PUCCELLI, AGE 12. Italian nationality. No known family survived. Liberated at Auschwitz. We found him permanently crippled in his right arm as a result of beatings ...

MARCIA KLASKIN, AGE 13. Rumanian nationality. No known family. Found at Dachau ...

HANS BELMAN, AGE 10. Dutch nationality. No known family. Found at Auschwitz. Hidden by Christians ...

The files went on and on. “No survivors.”

“... this child has the dream so prevalent with those children at Auschwitz. She dreams she is packing a suitcase. This we know is a symbol of death, for suitcases were always packed the night before inmates were transferred to the Birkenau gas chambers.”

“The dream of smelling smoke is symbolic of the smell of burning flesh from the crematoriums.”

Bedwetting.

Overt hostility.

Nightmares.

Belligerence.

Kitty looked at a copy of the letter she had once written to Harriet Saltzman.

My dear friend:

You have asked my opinion of the common denominator, and the reason we are able to get such quick recoveries and dynamic results from those children who are borderline psychopaths. Well, I think you know that answer far better than I. You gave it to me the first time I saw you in Jerusalem. The wonder drug is called “Eretz Israel.” The spirit is so strong here it seems unnatural. They desire only to live and fight for their country. I have never seen such energy or drive among adults, much less children ...

Kitty Fremont closed the files.

She stood up and looked around the office for several moments, then quickly snapped off the light and closed the door behind her.

She stopped outside the building for a moment. Halfway up the hill toward Fort Esther she saw a campfire. The Gadna children, the ten- and twelve- and fourteen-year-old soldiers would be singing and dancing a
hora
.