The Class (63 page)

As he joked to Eva, "He'll be the youngest hot-rodder in the Galilee."

Since his own childhood instruction had been by an array

of professionals, Jason took particular pleasure in being his sons' tutor for everything.

With josh as his "assistant professor," he taught the younger one how to swim in the communal pool.

"Keep kicking, Ben, you're doing great. Pretty soon you'll be a regular fish."

"i'm not a fish, Daddy, I'm a little boy."

Eva sat in the shade of a nearby tree, smiling with satisfaction, praying that this idyllic summer would never end.

Sometimes she would cook a simple dinner for the two of

them in their bungalow. And they would share some of the red wine from the lot Yossi had obtained in a trade for oranges with a nearby moshav. Marriage and motherhood had wrought a profound change in Eva. She was more relaxed than she had ever been in her life. She smiled. She even dared to feel happy.

In mid-July Isaac Stern, the violinist, came up to Vered

Ha-Gaul and gave a concert in the dining hail. He also left several of his latest LPs for the kibbutz library.

When Eva borrowed one of them to play on their hi-fl,

Jason noticed that the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto had been recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Rossi.

This evoked a torrent of reminiscences about the college days. -

Eva reached over and took his hand. "Are you feeling slightly homesick, my love?"

"Yeah, now and then," he confessed. "For stupid things like the World Series, the Super Bowl-even the Harvard- Yale game. I'm going to take you to one of those someday, Eva. It would be a nice change-it's a fight to the death where nobody dies."

"When shall we go? I can pack in fifteen minutes."

"When there's peace," he replied. "Then I'll take all four of

us over to visit Harvard-"

"And Disneyland, I hope."

"Naturally. We'll hit all the cultural high spots." And

he

repeated his proviso, "When there's peace."

- - "I think we'll be too old to travel by then, Jason."

"You're a pessimist, darling."

"No, I'm a realist. That's why I want you to give me at least

a tentative date."

"Okay, okay. I'm First Marshal of The Class. I'll have to go

to my Twenty-fifth Reunion."

"When is that?" -

"Oh, just eleven years."

"Good." She smiled. Her lack of irony surprised him.

"You mean you don't ,mind waiting that long?"

"No. It's perfect. That's exactly one year before Josh goes into the army." - - -

"You've thought that far ahead?"

She nodded. "Every Israeli mother works that out the day her son is born. Ben has another fourteen years."

They were both silent for a moment, trying to assimilate

the awesome significance of knowing exactly when their little children would have to go to war.

Jason then rose and took her gently in his arms.

"Darling, when I finally go back to the Sayaret, remember this conversation. I want our- boys to be able to play with tennis rackets, not rifles."

"I'd like my husband to do that, too."

Since Zvi had not given him a deadline, Jason planned on staying away from active duty for six months. But this halcyon period lasted less than ninety days.

On the morning of September 5, 1972, eight Black September terrorists broke into the quarters of the Israeli team in the Olympic village in Munich, killing two athletes and holding nine others hostage.

After the first sketchy announcement on the radio, Jason

was already racing back to the unit. He knew it was a crisis that needed the Sayaret's expertise.

A group was gradually assembled and prepared to fly out.

But Moshe Dayan's request to allow the Israeli commandos to rescue their countrymen was refused by the German

authorities. The Bereitschaf'tspolizei could-and would-handle

this crisis themselves.

When the news came that the German rescue assault had

failed and all Israeli hostages had been killed, the entire

Sayaret was filled with despair and rage.

Only Zvi's supreme self-control enabled him to speak

calmly. "We will find out which terrorists planned this. And we will exact revenge on every last one of them."

To which Jason responded simply, "I'm coming back to work."

It did not take long for the Intelligence Service to

discover the identities of those who had organized the Munich Massacre. One of the chief engineers had been Abu Youssef, ElFatah s chief intelligence officer and Yasser Arafat's closest deputy. The Secret Service had even located the apartment in Beirut from which he was currently operating.

Zvi and his fellow officers began to map out a plan to get

him. The unit would also take advantage of its brief

presence in the Lebanese capital to settle some other scores against the terrorists who had killed so many Israeli citizens.

On the night of April 10, Jason was one of several dozen

men who boarded a patrol boat that sped up the Mediterranean coast and dropped anchor off the shore of Beirut. They were dressed as typical tourists on a night out in the "Riviera" of the Middle East.

They climbed into rubber dinghies and headed quietly toward a darkened beach club where the Secret Service had left rented cars for them. Then they set off to their assigned destinations.

Jason began to drive toward Rue Khaled Ben Al Walid. He parked near the building which photographs had identified as Abu Youssefs residence. -

Five of them got out of the car and walked inside. The apartment was on the third floor, defended by two armed men whom Jason and Un, another commando, planned to

- dispatch before they could make any noise.

They weren't fast enough. One of the guards managed to get off a shot before hitting the ground. By the time the commandos had smashed through the entrance, the terrorist leader had barricaded himself in the bedroom.

Jason and the others splintered the door with a- hail of

machine-gun fire. When they stepped inside, they found that their bullets had killed Abu Youssef-and fatally wounded his wife.

Jason had barely reacted to this - sight when Un called out, "Police cars coming."

"All right," he replied, quickly rifling the terrorist

chiefs desk and grabbing what documents he could. "Let's get the hell out of here." - - -

As they sprinted down the stairs, an old woman stuck her head out of an apartment door. A startled commando fired and she crumpled to the ground.

Out in the street, they tossed hand grenades to distract

the arriving gendarmes, leapt into their car, and sped toward the seafront. -

The other men were already back at the beach. When they caught sight of Jason's group they waved, ran toward the water's edge, and clambered into the rubber boats. Jason and his men quickly followed and began rowing furiously out to sea.

A few hours later they were back at the Sayaret headquarters in the heart of Israel.

One of the other squad leaders was reporting that he had blown up part of the terrorists' headquarters and shot

several defenders in the process. A second unit had hit other

PLO buildings, including a bomb-making workshop.

But it was the - results of Jason's assignment that most concerned Zvi.

"Well, saba," he asked anxiously, "how did you do?

Jason replied slowly and deliberately, "We killed the guy who planned the Munich Massacre." -

"Congratulations-"

"But we also killed a few innocent people." He then fell silent, -

"Saba, we are in a war. When the air force bombs a military target, even if they score a direct hit, it's inevitable that civilians are affected."

"Yeah, but the bombers are thousands of feet up in the clouds. They don't have to see any faces."

Zvi grabbed him by the shoulders and said firmly, "Listen to me. You're a soldier defending your country. These men

killed Israelis and were planning to kill more. You probably saved hundreds of lives. Maybe thousands. You should be

proud."

Jason merely shook his head, walked out of the building, climbed into his car, and drove north to the kibbutz.

It was early morning when he arrived, and the children

were on their way to the schoolhouse. His young sons saw him and rushed to embrace him.

As he held them tightly and kissed them, he thought, You

two are the only justification for going on in this killing business. Maybe when you grow up, the world will have finally come to its senses.

Two weeks later, Zvi called Jason into his office. He was relaxed and smiling. "I've got. an operation I think you'll actually enjoy."

"I doubt it," Jason replied sarcastically.

"No, really. This should appeal to the Harvard man in you. It involves going to America. Our government is concerned

with Israel's deteriorating image, especially among the young people-the so-called New Left. We need a few eloquent

spokesmen to tour campuses and maybe even speak to Jewish groups to bolster morale,"

"I'm not much of an orator," Jason replied.

"But you still have a lovely American accent. That would help. Also, I remember when we first met you used to have a certain charm."

"'Used to' is right."

"Anyway, you can take Eva to Jerusalem with you for the

week the Foreign Office needs to brief you. Look at it ~s a holiday, saba. Maybe a little vacation with your wife will help you find some of that long-lost charm."

As they walked the streets of Jerusalem, Eva recalled that when Jason had first come to Israel, they had been able to visit only half of it.

"That's something you could mention in your talks," she suggested. "When Jordan held the Old City, they not only kept the Jews from their holy places, they actually used our synagogues as stables. The world has got to give us credit

for ensuring freedom of religion here." -

"Eva, the world doesn't give us credit for anything."

"Well, I feel proud anyway," she insisted.

"Good." He smiled. "Then maybe you can go and give my

speeches for me.

Jason arrived in New York at the end of May. It was the first time in nearly ten years that he had set foot on

American soil. And it felt good. At least some of it, anyway. He was in the land of his birth, a place he had missed desperately at times. But it was also the home of his

parents, who were now a mere ten-cent phone call away. He had spent his last few days with Eva agonizing over what to do about them, and had reached no satisfactory

conclusion. She felt he should drive out to Long Island and see them. So much more could be accomplished in a face-toface confrontation. They could look into his eyes and perceive his commitment. That could change everything.

But it was easier for her to say than for him to do. He knew he had caused his parents heartache. And whatever the rights or wrongs of his actions, he still felt guilty.

Yet, one thing Eva told him gnawed at his consciousness:

"You'll never make peace with yourself until you make peace with them. One way or another, you have to free yourself or you'll never grow up."

"But I'm nearly forty years old," he had protested.

"All the more reason for you to become a full-fledged adult," she had replied.

Still, Jason sat in his hotel room that afternoon unable

to -pick up the phone. Instead, he put on his newly acquired summer-weight suit and went out for a walk. He told himself that he was ambling up Fifth Avenue merely to stare in shop windows at all the luxuries no Israeli could afford. Yet, when he reached Forty-fourth Street, he knew that what had drawn him there was the Harvard Club. -

He hadn't paid his dues for years, but he talked his way

in by fabricating the excuse that he would be meeting Andrew

Eliot upstairs in the gym.

He took the elevator to the fifth floor and checked the squash-reservations book for that afternoon. Sure enough, at

5:00 P.M. there was a court assigned to "A. Eliot '58." He glanced at his watch-only twenty minutes to- wait.

Andrew could not believe his eyes. He was ecstatic.

"My God, Gilbert. You haven't changed at all. I mean, the rest of us are losing hair and growing paunches and you look