Mitla Pass (18 page)

“Hi, baby, where are the kids?”

“Playing with the Ben Josephs.”

Val turned from the sink and saw him. He was ashen. “You shouldn’t run in this heat,” she said.

He averted her stare, went to the fridge, and devoured another bottle of soda pop. “I just talked to Cromwell,” he whispered.

“Sorry, honey, I can’t hear you.” Val turned off the faucets and wiped her hands. “What did you say?”

“I said, I talked to Cromwell. Val, we’ve been ordered to evacuate.”

It didn’t register. “Evacuate? Where, how, when? Is this part of some kind of maneuvers?”

“It’s not maneuvers. We’ve been ordered to evacuate the country.”

Val was horror-stricken. She uttered a little peep and gripped the sink to steady herself. Gideon sank to the table, his head lowered, his eyes on the aggregate floor studying the designs abstractedly. He looked up slowly. She was over him.

“Where? When?”

“Tonight. Probably someplace in Europe. Planes are on the way from Germany.”

She appealed to him with her eyes. “Please tell me it’s a bad joke,” she was trying to say. He shrugged. “We don’t have to go,” Gideon said.

“What kind of crazy business is this!”

“There seems to be a lot of spite involved. Eisenhower is furious with Israel. Jerking the embassy people out like this seems to be more of a warning than anything.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think we’re in any danger, but it’s something I don’t want to be wrong about. What really disturbs me is how this must all sound over the news at home. I guess I’m thinking about your mother and my old man. If there’s one chance in a million of the girls getting hurt, we can’t take it.”

“You’re right, it would kill Mom on top of her stroke,” Val said slowly, allowing reality to take over her fright.

“Settled, then. Better start packing up for you and the girls.”

“What about you?”

Gideon shook his head. “There’s no way I can leave.”

“Why?” she asked. It was a devastating, all-encompassing, “WHY.”

“I can’t, you know I can’t. I’m ...”

“You’re what!”

“I’m a Jew ... I represented myself here as a fighter ... a Marine ...
Of Men in Battle
is their second bible. ... I can’t tuck my tail between my legs and jump ship with the women and children. It wouldn’t sit right.”

“To whom wouldn’t it sit right?”

“To myself among others. Who in the hell would ever believe a word I wrote in my book?”

“Fuck your book!” Val yelled.

“Whatever you say, whatever you think, is right. I’ve messed up, in spades. Even if I could make myself believe it was morally right to leave, we still have problems. We’ve got to salvage something out of this. You’re only going to be able to take a couple of suitcases.”

“Don’t give me that shit, Gideon! Your pals can pack and ship the rest of the stuff.”

“Baby, we are broke. I mean dead-ass busted. I’ve got to try to get some of the lease money back. Maybe, if I can sell the car to a foreigner on a passport-to-passport deal, I can raise a few thousand dollars. We’ve got three thousand in Israeli currency in the bank. It’s going to take some real manipulation to get it converted.”

“Dammit, let’s just leave,” she cried.

He didn’t hear her. She didn’t hear him. “I’ve got a dozen cables to get on the wire. I’ve got to pick up some writing assignments,” he mumbled.

“Let’s just go!”

“We’ve barely got hotel money for you in Europe.”

And then they stopped their soliloquies and stared at each other. “What about the rest of it, Gideon? Are you going to find the hottest combat unit in Israel and wing it out with them?”

No more needed to be said. The confrontation was spoken with eyes. What about Natasha Solomon?

Val accepted the reality as though the life had been squeezed from her body. “What about Grover?” she asked, barely speaking. “He’s sick.”

“I was told I couldn’t get him on the plane. I’ll take him in to Dr. Klement and do everything I can to bring him out with me, later. If not, I’ll find him a good home.”

Val looked around desperately as though she were waiting for the hypnotist to clap his hands and wake her from her nightmare. The girls were standing in the doorway, gaping in disbelief.

“How much did you hear?”

“We have to leave,” Penny said.

“Go to your room and lay out only the most essential things on the bed,” Valerie said with sudden firmness. “Dad will send everything to us later.”

“Grover!”

“I’ll do everything I can to get him to you as soon as he’s well.”

Roxy broke and wept.

“Roxanne,” Valerie said sternly, “we’ve got to tough it, so pull yourself together, girl. There’s a long night ahead.”

“Yes, Momma ...”

E
ACH ITEM
of clothing was rolled up tightly and jammed down into a pair of Gideon’s Marine Corps seabags. It was amazing how much they were able to pack in.

Gideon told them that during the war, just before they went into combat they would wind a roll of toilet paper around a pencil and keep stretching it tighter so that five or six rolls could be compressed into a few inches in diameter.

The six o’clock news came on, with a chilling announcement that a blackout was now in effect. It was Grover Vandover who picked up on the growing tension as neighbors arrived, but the dog was feeling too low to protest with much more than a whimper.

Some of the neighbors brought dollars from their hidden stashes and exchanged them for Israeli currency to help the Zadoks. Everyone gave Val a letter to be mailed to South Africa or elsewhere when she was out of the country. Farewell embraces as Gideon finished painting the headlights of the car to comply with the blackout. He muscled the seabags into the trunk just as the sun set.

The four of them were suddenly standing by the Ford, looking at the cottage. They had barely settled in and it was over with. As they closed the doors, the situation hit them with a sickening thud. Gideon hesitated as though a last-minute reprieve might save them, then he switched on the engine.

The car probed into a suddenly blackened countryside, bypassing a Tel Aviv that no longer seemed to be there. He had taken the route a hundred times on the way to Jerusalem but never in darkness.

Gideon gripped the wheel tightly and strained to pick up any little familiar landmarks. The car suddenly banged into something and bucked hard. He had driven up and over a curb. A few minutes later they went off the shoulder of the road and barely missed sinking into a ditch. Val drove them out while Gideon pushed.

Good. A familiar straight road for a while. Val took the Uzi gun off her lap, set it on the floor, and wrote a list of things he had to do. The girls forced their way through
The Little Brown Song Book.

There was once a man

With a double chin

Who performed with skill

On the violin,

And he play’d in time,

And he played in tune,

But he never play’d anything

But Old Zip Coon.

Old Zip Coon

He played all day,

Until he drove his friends away;

He played all night

By the light of the moon.

And he wouldn’t play anything

But Old Zip Coon.

Gideon slammed the brakes on. Jesus! He had almost dead-centered a donkey and cart. Fierce words were exchanged in Hebrew and English. No one understood the other.

“Come on back in the car, honey. We haven’t got time to get into a fight now,” she said.

“Shmuck!”

Just a song at twilight,

When the lights are low,

And the flickering shadows

Softly come and go.

He inched to a stop, apparently lost. Dammit! Seemed to be an intersection ahead. He walked up and found the road signs. Blessed relief. Lydda Airport—4km.

They were passed through the security gate and reached the parking lot just before nine o’clock, coming upon an eerie scene. The main lounge of the aged terminal was clogged with fleeing diplomats and their families. The place was lit by candle and lantern light casting a yellowish glow over piles of hastily packed suitcases and confused, disorganized humanity. Talk was in whispers, as though an enemy were listening. No one seemed to know anything.

Gideon carved out a place for Val and the girls and set out to find Rich Cromwell. He located him up in the tower. He flashed a false credential, one of a half dozen he carried, and shoved his way into the control room. The confusion there seemed as rampant as it was in the terminal. There had been word of American evacuation plans and a lot of unidentified blips were spooking the radar screens. The situation was worsened by the standoff between the Americans and Israelis. The Americans wanted no cooperation, not even data from Israeli patrol planes.

“Hi, Rich, how’s it going?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“It’s not exactly America’s proudest moment. Hard to tell whether the rats are deserting the sinking ship or the ship is deserting the sinking rats,” Gideon said sourly.

“Did you register?” Cromwell asked, ignoring the comment.

“No.”

“There’s a desk in the cafeteria. Tell them your name is on the CIA list. I’ll hunt you down in a while; I want to talk to you.” Gideon had been leery of the special treatment. He was certain that Cromwell was going to have one more crack at him for intelligence data. He didn’t like it.

Val had used her wits, packing a deck of cards, some jacks and a ball, and mini-chess and cribbage boards. She also had thrown together some sandwiches and fruit. The latter proved inspirational as the cafeteria had been stripped down to the last crust of bread.

The air grew thick from too many people and too much cigarette smoke. As the moments oozed by, a surrealistic pall dulled the place further. With each new rumor sudden flurries of loud talk broke out above the whispers.

Eleven o’clock ...eleven-thirty ...the rest rooms were becoming unusable.

Numbness set in. It became unearthly quiet.

Gideon put Roxanne on his lap and hugged her and rocked her.

“Where are we going, Daddy?”

“I’m not sure, darling. Probably across the sea. Italy, or maybe to Germany.”

“I’m scared.”

“Well, that’s natural. But you’ve got a lot of people watching out for you.”

“How?”

“There are a lot of planes out there making sure the skies are safe. It’s going to be a while before we know the rights and wrongs of this thing. But you’ve got to be proud you’re an American. Why, your country thinks so much about one little girl, they’re coming from thousands of miles away to take you to safety.”

“Why can’t you come?”

“I ...I’ve got work to do, darling. Mom and I decided you ought to go because of Grandma Jane and your
zayde.
”

Midnight.

Valerie dosed the girls up with Dramamine and a mild sleeping prescription and soon they fell into a deep slumber curled up on the seabags.

Val and Gideon were wordless, their thoughts jumbled and disconnected. Val’s hair had become disheveled and her eyes listless.

She was unaware of Gideon’s patting her. Her mind was on the list. Did I put a note for him to cancel my hair appointment? Not to bother, the hairdresser is in a reserve unit ...did I pack Penelope’s medication ...sure I did, I must have ...the minute we land I’ll find the nearest U.S. Naval facility and they’ll get a message through to Mom ...

She studied him in the low light. The weight of the world seemed on his shoulders. He needed a word. He needed to be comforted, absolved. Oh Lord, what was he facing up ahead? Dammit! Gideon and his God-damned ambition. Comfort him, hell—comfort me. I should talk to him. Honey, don’t do anything foolish. You can’t write the book if you’re dead. Come back to us, honey. I love you. Why can’t I say I love you?

Gideon tried to work himself up to a pep talk. Someday, he thought, you’ll be so proud of this. It’s all going to be worthwhile. I’ll write the greatest—oh shit, forget it, Zadok. That’s all she needs now, a rah-rah Zadok speech from me. Val, I’ll make it up to you. I swear it ...

Wordless, numb.

One o’clock.

Rich Cromwell tapped Gideon on the arm and signaled for him to follow. They went into a side office. Gideon looked at the assemblage. The three military attachés from the embassy glared at him as Cromwell closed the door behind them.

“Shit,” Gideon said, “the KGB interrogation team.”

“Two hundred French six-by-six trucks arrived at the Haifa port about four hours ago. Somebody is getting ready to transport a lot of troops somewhere,” the naval attaché said.

“I didn’t clear the shipment,” Gideon snapped.

“On the other side of the field here,” Rich said, “a dozen French Ouragan fighter planes have landed and they’re painting the Star of David over the tricolors.”

“Are they going to attack Egypt or not?” the army attaché demanded.

“Is this why you told me to bring my family here? To hold them hostage?”

“We’ve got a message the Egyptian fighter planes are off the coast,” Rich said.

“If I knew,” Gideon snarled, “do you think I’d let my wife and daughters fly into them?”

Cromwell’s nerve snapped. “You God-damned Jews had better get this question settled of whether you’re Americans or not!” His pinkish cheeks turned crimson as their little red veins bulged. He shook his finger at Gideon menacingly. “Now listen, Jew boy, you’d better give it to us and give it to us right.”

“Go fuck yourself, you rumheaded cunt. We Jews have paid our passage to be Americans, to make America great. We are the most loyal community America has. You mother-fucking Nantucket-Pasadena lily-white plaid-pants pious Jesus bigot. Up yours, Cromwell!”