Mitla Pass (58 page)

Gideon’s binoculars were gone, Shlomo’s line was cut, and the tanks and mortar squads ran out of ammunition at the same moment. “Come on down, Gideon. Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Shlomo yelled.

“Good! I can’t direct any more fire. Look!”

Shlomo saw the tanks retreating and became fascinated watching the Recon men lowering each other down a sheer wall on ropes and tossing grenades into the Egyptian caves.

“Masada!” Shlomo shouted down. “We’re securing our position! Tanks are withdrawing and none of the mortars are in operation!”

“Get your asses down here quick!” Masada called up.

Stray bullets had been ricocheting off the walls all day. As Shlomo raised himself to assist Gideon coming down, he caught a bullet in the stomach and slid, rolled, bounced, and hurtled off the ledge into the command post. Gideon, his injured leg all but inoperable, limped; then he leaped to the ground and crawled to Shlomo.

“Hey, baby! Hey, baby! Talk to me, Pedro! Pedro! Talk to me, man! God dammit, talk to me ... Shlomo! Pedro! Shlomo! Pedro!”

Central to Para 202 STOP Our forces have broken through on northern and central axis STOP They will reach Canal by tonight STOP Yoffe’s Brigade ahead of schedule STOP At dawn tomorrow move Para 202 down Gulf of Suez to assist in capture of Sharm al-Sheikh. SIGNED Dayan, Chief of Staff

Para 202 to Central STOP 1430 Hours. Inquiry STOP Should I leave a defensive force inside Mitla Pass SIGNED Colonel Z.

Central to Para 202 STOP 1435 Hours STOP Negative to your inquiry STOP Abandon Mitla Pass STOP It has no military value SIGNED Dayan, Chief of Staff.

Gideon sat on a tiny knoll at the edge of the airstrip and looked down at the row of corpses, now sacked in plastic bags, waiting to be taken back to Israel. The wounded had already been evacuated. This would be the last flight.

Gideon felt a presence and looked up. Zechariah towered above him, then sat beside him and also stared at the dead.

“Hello, writer. I heard you had a big day directing tank and mortar fire.”

“I don’t speak Hebrew,” Gideon said in an angry whisper. “Shlomo did all the work.”

“You’re too modest. You were very courageous, both of you. You stayed out there in an exposed position for hours.”

“It was the only place we could find with a clear view.”

There was a long silence; bitter nothings passed between them unsaid.

“Do you have a clear view now?” Zechariah asked. “Did we stage for you the battle you craved? Can you now march forward into immortality?”

Gideon closed his eyes and shed a tear. “Shut up, Colonel,” he said.

“Oh, I see. The writer thinks it got too untidy in there. The writer is now passing great judgments. Mitla Pass did not have to be taken. Zechariah is a butcher.”

“You’re reading my thoughts exactly,” Gideon said.

“What the hell did you think you were going to find out there? Supermen? Ancient Hebrews scaling sheer walls with God’s angels circling around them and turning enemy bullets into rose petals?”

Gideon started to move away, but Zechariah grabbed his arm. “Do you think I am without tears, writer?”

“You? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“My kid brother was killed today at El Arish. He was ... he was ... my kid brother... .”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fifty of my boys lie dead down there. I had to learn at an early age to cry inside and only when I’m alone.”

“But this was such an act of futility!” Gideon said clenching his fists.

“All wars are acts of futility, writer. So, Zechariah maybe made a bad judgment in battle. Maybe not. History and the Lord alone will pass on that. We wanted a state. From the time I was twelve years old, I have done nothing but serve that state. Zechariah, Bedouins are marauding a village; Zechariah, give us a paratroop brigade; Zechariah, cross the border and give the Syrians a lesson. Make those boys hard, Zechariah, make them invincible, make them scale cliffs under enemy fire. Ah yes, but Jews are not supposed to die in battle. Jewish generals are supposed to get their wisdom directly from the Almighty. Well, writer, we have been under arms from birth, all of us, and twice in less than a decade we have been called to all-out war. Win it fast, Zechariah! We don’t have the time and resources for a long war! Get it done any way you can! Do you think this is the last time Israel will have to come through Mitla Pass?”

Gideon stared into the troubled face of the colonel.

“But we are a democracy. We will talk and talk and talk. Jews are liberal, peaceful. Warriors are fascists. So, there will be a commission of inquiry filled with intellectuals and our free press will roast me alive. And then all those great thinkers and great statesmen will go and fuck everything up and lead us to the brink of another war. And they’ll come to me and say, There’s a mess out there, Zechariah. Go clean it up for us. They do the talking. Zechariah does the dirty work. And maybe, mistakes will be made in battle and there will be another commission of inquiry. Perhaps someday we will find that flawless general who can lead us into bloodless victories. Or have you forgotten how many times your glorious Marine generals fucked up in battle?”

Captain Kofsky approached them. “Dakota is in radio contact. It will be landing anytime now, Zech. The brigade is forming up to bid them farewell.”

Zechariah came to his feet. “We’re heading south tomorrow, writer. I’ve got to beat Yoffe to Sharm al-Sheikh. You want to ride with us? Come on, I’ll take you in my own jeep.”

Gideon pulled himself to his feet and massaged his gimpy leg. “I want to take Shlomo home,” he said.

“You’re a good man, Zadok. Write us a hell of a book, will you?”

The three of them stood transfixed as the Dakota appeared on the horizon. The desert air stirred a bit and the plane wigwagged down to hit the narrow runway like a child’s paper toy, screeched, spat up dirt from its wheels, and sputtered to a stop. Voices of the officers called Para 202 to attention. The bugler sounded taps as Zechariah and Captain Kofsky walked briskly toward them and Gideon limped, a few steps behind.

CYPRUS

KYRENIA

November 12, 1956

T
HE BREEZE OFF
the sea was sharp; it billowed the long lace curtain into the room, as though a big sail had broken loose from a racing yacht. The curtain
LEAPED
upon the bed and danced on Gideon’s bare back. He tried to open his eyes. They were glued shut. He forced them open and squinted and teared. The room was a bright white on white. White curtains, white walls, white wicker armchairs, white dresser, white, white white.

“Shithouse mouse,” Gideon blurted, his voice drowned in the white pillows and a white sheet entangled around his naked body. “Where the fuck am I?”

“Right here with me,
habibi.
”

Natasha’s voice.

Gideon tried to lift his head from the pillow. It was like a rock that someone was pounding with a sledgehammer. Natasha entered from the balcony, flowing. Natasha! Red hair, a joyous invasion of the white on white. Her long, slender neck bore an expanse of intricate Yemenite jewelry and a smashing green silk robe clung to her body.

Gideon inched up like a fighter using the ropes to climb up, until he came to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He smacked his lips together. They were dry. “I need something to clean my mouth out.”

“Try this,” she said, pulling him to his feet, then burying her tongue in his mouth.

“Honey, don’t, I stink,” he said, holding her off at arm’s length, then kissed her. “I lost my head for a minute. I forgot how much you like sweaty, stinking workmen, and perfumed barons, and wop race car drivers, and big black stevedores, and roughnecks with tattoos.”

“Yes, darling, and you played every single part to perfection. But most of all, I love mean little five-foot-eight, Jew, cowboy, writers.”

“It’s so white here. Where are we? Morocco?”

“Cyprus.”

“Cyprus? Really? I’ll be go-to-hell. Tell me about it.”

“I met you when you landed at Beersheba. We took Shlomo back to his kibbutz and saw his wife and children,” she said.

Gideon leaned against the wall and bit his lip. “God, he’s dead.” He rubbed his hand over his stomach. “He caught one right in the belly. We were standing this close together. It could have just as well been me.”

“I know, darling, you’ve told me about it over and over.”

Gideon couldn’t stand the foul taste in his mouth. He wobbled into the bathroom and spotted her Swedish mouthwash, the brand that could blow a hole in a tank, and drank it straight without mixing it in water.

“Yow!” He opened both faucets and splashed water into his mouth handful after handful. He found his bathrobe on the door hook, put it on, and sauntered out to the balcony, shading his eyes from a blast of sunlight. He was on the third story. A block or two away and below him lay a tiny circular jewel-like little harbor.

“Hey, did Yoffe ever reach Sharm al-Sheikh?”

“Yes, and he beat Zechariah by a half day.”

“Good. Cyprus, huh. Where?”

“Kyrenia.”

“Any idea how we got here?”

“A friendly driver brought us from Famagusta. He is with relatives across town.”

“Jeeze, that’s interesting.”

“We landed on Cyprus three days ago. You were blotto, oblivious. I have learned every Marine Corps song from the American Revolution on. Anyhow, we cruised out from Nicosia and wound up in the Turkish Quarter of Famagusta yesterday and ran into this nice gentleman, whom we hired as a driver. He introduced us to the delights of opium. Seeing that neither of us had ever tried it before and seeing that mere alcohol was not going to do away with your blues and blahs, and seeing that you declared with bravado that every real writer had to try everything at least once, we did, and here we are.”

“I said all that, huh?”

“And much, much more. You wanted to send Shlomo off in grand style. You did him proud.”

“You know something, my goddam stomach feels like a sewer is running through it, and my head is about to explode.”

Natasha went inside and fixed a potion in a glass, fished for a pair of aspirins in her purse, and drew a glass of water. “Here, just close your eyes and drink this first.”

“What is it?”

“Cognac and bitters, an old Hungarian cure-all.”

“That’s not Israeli cognac, is it?”

“Of course not. You lectured me about that for a full hour in Jaffa.”

“I did, huh.” He drank, winced, and then downed the aspirins.

“Catch some air out here; it will do you good. I’ll order up some lunch.”

“I, uh, really don’t think I want anything to eat.”

“You haven’t had anything but booze and opium in your stomach for forty-eight hours.”

“All right, but nothing too ... you know, greasy.”

When Natasha returned to the balcony, she found Gideon entranced with the beauty of the harbor. On the far side was an ancient fortress, probably Venetian.

“That harbor is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “What’s the name of this hotel we’re in?”

“The Dome. It’s veddy veddy British, middle-ranking civil-servant type holiday place.”

Gideon scratched his stubbly face, then held his hands out, making a square as though it were a camera view finder, putting the quay into focus. “Dome Hotel, Kyrenia, Cyprus,” he said, like a “voice-over” of the scene in a screenplay. “I just might start my novel here. That would be wild! We’ll have to go down there and take a good look later.”

Gideon turned around and, seeing her radiant in her colors, hair now flowing with the breeze, her robe a violent verdant with the sun shimmering off it. He brought her to him, untied the front of her gown. The knot disappeared easily, and he reached inside around her waist and brought all that white softness to him, then lifted her in his arms and took her through the French doors to the big fluffy down featherbed where he buried himself in her.

It took no more than a touch from either of them to set them off again yet one more time, only to be halted by the arrival of the food.

“Good,” he said, “I think our tanks are trying to run on empty.”

Fortunately the British chef, a former hard-assed cook in the Navy, was on vacation, and his Greek assistant had made up the sumptuous platter of seafood, lobster, squid, dainty little eels, shrimps, chips, veggies, and vino ... retsina and ouzo. They tried the ouzo. It blended well, not agitating his hangover.

They recounted the past week or so, much of which was very hazy.

“You said to me, I wanna go get fucked up,” she swaggered, imitating an American accent. “So, what girl could refuse such a charming invitation?”

The first stop was the King David Hotel. “We barely made it inside our room. Some people in the hall were quite shocked. You stood in the doorway and started to unzip your pants before a group of Hadassah ladies.”

“Oh shit, real kid stuff,” Gideon chastised himself.

“Then you turned around and mooned them, much to their delight.”

“Gimme some more ouzo. This stuff is really straightening me out.”

“Closing the door and locking it behind you, you threw the key over the balcony and declared, Ever see turtles fuck? They sit on top of the water in the sun, humping each other with the only movement, the rolling of the waves, and they don’t quit till one dies. Well, you weren’t exactly a turtle,
habibi,
because every hour or so you would dismount, go out on the balcony, and look across no-man’s-land to the Old City walls, and shake your fist and deliver your sermon from the balcony.