The Glory (92 page)

“Where have you been, Danny, anyway?” The bald captain, once a wingmate of his father’s, sounds peevish. “This is a good planeload.
Tourism is dead. Independence Day will be a total disaster. Don’t you know about the intifada?”

“Don’t blame the intifada,” objects the copilot, who wears a
Shalom Akshav
(Peace Now) button. “Blame our crazy government, setting free
five thousand terrorists
in exchange for eight guys captured in Lebanon. What did we expect all those terrorists to do? Go to New York and become
bloody taxi drivers?”

“The intifada is kids throwing stones and burning tires,” says the captain, “not terrorists.”

“That’s just for American TV. The ringleaders are getting smart, sending the kids out front,” says the copilot. “It’s a terrorist
uprising, and the tourists are right to stay away.”

Danny feels himself back in an unchanged Israel, though when he left the intifada was only starting. Emerging from the quiet
airport into the steamy Tel Aviv afternoon, he sees Yossi Nitzan, in shorts and a sport shirt, talking to a paunchy grayhead,
sharply dressed in Hollywood style. Yossi gives him a friendly wave as he goes by.

“But Lee, where are Spencer and his wife?” Yossi is saying to his brother. Lee’s son Spencer and Tamara Katzman were married
some time ago, in a Beverly Hills wedding of Babylonian magnificence.

“Cancelled their trip at the last minute,” Lee Bloom says. “Intifada.”

“What nonsense! Why, they planned this first visit to Israel for months, I’ve got a car and driver for them, a great itinerary
—”

“Look, she’s a nice Jewish girl, Tamara.” Lee Bloom shrugs. “It’s the TV, Yossi. She thinks Israel is like wartime Stalingrad.
I know better, but —” He looks around, taking a deep breath. “Twelve years since I’ve been here! The air smells nice, the
ground feels good.”

“You’re too fat, Lee.”

“I eat when I worry. Since Sheva died and Yael settled here, it’s all on me. I’m rich, I worry, I eat.”

F
our people stand on a grassy hillside north of Yemin Moshe, around a low stone veiled with cheesecloth. The engraving on the
stone is visible through the thin threads:

To

a Friend

CHRISTIAN CUNNINGHAM

with the dates of his birth and death. Teddy Kollek, the corpulent old mayor of Jerusalem, says to Emily, “Well, this is it,
Mrs. Halliday. Not something to publicize, but the inscription says it all. To honor your father as befits what he meant to
us, we dedicate this stone on Israel’s fortieth Independence Day. Will you do the unveiling?”

She nods, stoops, and pulls aside the cloth.

Sam Pasternak says, “He made a difference. Bless his memory.”

The mayor gets into his waiting car. Pasternak, even more portly than the mayor, walks off with his slow rolling gait toward
Yemin Moshe.

“Where is this party we’re going to, Wolf?”

“Where Sam’s heading, that big house down at the foot of the staircase, with all the flowers on the balconies. It’s not a
party, exactly. We’ll be watching the Independence Day celebration.”

“What does Sam do now?”

“Sam heads a big conglomerate. Among other things, he’s building thousands of homes for the Russian Jews. He’s also been very
involved in the rescue of the Ethiopians, on the secret end. Covert action is in that fat old warhorse’s blood.” He takes
her arm. “Come, we won’t be early, and it’ll be crowded.”

“Wolf, I won’t know anyone there.”

“Nonsense, you know Sam, and you know Nakhama. In fact, she told me she’s looking forward to showing you our grandchildren.”

“She did? Well, that sounds good. Four now, isn’t it, dear?”

“Five. Galia had her second in March. And Ruti’s expecting.”

“Prolific tribe, the Baraks. Bless them all.”

She gets down on a knee and touches her lips to the stone. He helps her up, for Queenie has grown quite stout and is all gray.
She stands silent for several moments. “All right,” she says, “let’s go.” They start to descend a long stone staircase. She
gestures at the Old City wall across the ravine, golden in the late sunlight, where many figures are bustling about. “There
it is, Wolf, the light one sees nowhere else on earth. And what’s all that activity over there?”

“Readying the fireworks, no doubt.”

“My God, Jerusalem is so lovely, so lovely, Zev. Even Bud, that cold customer, always said so.”

“Beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth,”
Barak says. “So sang the psalmist. He and Bud Halliday agree, so who am I to argue?”

Emily stops walking, and tugs at his arm. “Explain yourself.”

“Explain what?”

“That sarcastic tone. Those bitter words.”

“Oh, Emily!” He whips an arm toward the Old City panorama. “This is the tourist fantasy of Israel, so your father’s stone
is well placed. Chris held that fantasy in his heart. He never lived here.”

“And the reality, dear?”

“The reality?” A tart laugh. “Not for the Independence Day mood, but okay, where do I begin? A government paralyzed by peanut
politicians, that barely functions with sleazy horse trades? Chronic blowups between the religious and the secular? People
working at two and three jobs to make ends meet, lives broken by reserve callups, tax evasion as a way of life, sons and daughters
leaving the country and not coming back? The dark mutter of Islam all around us and right here, at our very heart, behind
those beautiful walls? Will that do as a taste of our reality?” Enfolding her arm in his, he walks on down the flower-lined
stone staircase. “Come along, let’s forget the reality for today.”

“Then is what my eyes are seeing, Zev, just a pretty lie?”

“Oh, Queenie, Queenie, call it a dream trying to come true. Listen, is the reality of America the Lincoln Memorial and the
Manhattan skyscrapers, or the terrible mess you’re in yourselves? The old countries, Japan, England, Russia, worse off or
better off, they just
are
. We’re both still
trying to be
, you the giant of the world and we the crazy little nobody in the Middle East. Who knows whether we’ll make it in the end,
either of us?” His laugh is warmer. “And what set me off this way, anyhow? Thinking of Chris, I guess, and his vision of how
it will all end. God make it so, and God rest his soul. Such friends are rare.”

She touches a handkerchief to her eyes, and he puts an arm around her. “This may sound morbid, dear White Wolf,” she says,
“but I hope to God I die before you do. As long as I know you’re somewhere in this world, I’m okay.”

Y
om Ha’atzma’ut! Independence Day! And if the tourists are not showing up, who cares? The Israelis are turning out in huge
crowds. Intifada, shmintifada! Forty years! Parades, speeches, concerts, dancing in the streets, have been going on all day,
all over the land. The crowning daytime event has been a flyby of Phantoms, Kfirs, and F-16s over Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.
Now toward evening, everyone in Israel who can drive, walk, or ride an animal to Jerusalem is doing so, for the laser-beam
show to be projected on the Old City wall, and Handel’s
Messiah
to be performed in the amphitheater below by the Philharmonic and massed choral societies, concluding in an all-time extravaganza
of fireworks.

Yemin Moshe is a perfect site for viewing this spectacle, and its residents are under much pressure to invite their friends.
The front-row mansion of Max and Yael Roweh, with balconies on two floors plus a rooftop, is the hottest ticket in town, in
a manner of speaking. Yael has arranged chairs and refreshments for viewers on all three levels; places on the roof for the
romantically inclined, for viewing in starlit darkness; more places downstairs for young anxious parents, where their offspring
can fall but a foot or so to soft flower beds, and grandparents can baby-sit and dote; the big party in the main living room
and on its spacious balcony.

Zev brings Emily Halliday downstairs, and Nakhama happily sorts out her small fry from the boil of children, displaying them
for Emily’s admiration. Emily notes with a trace of chagrin, and faint amusement at herself for feeling so, that Nakhama —
always the fleshy one — has stayed reasonably shapely, and almost unreasonably beautiful, into her sixties; her hair still
dark, her arms smooth and rounded. Genes, or something. Lucky Zev, having it both ways to the last, the monster. She is grateful
when he takes her up to the roof, where the first stars are appearing. “Dearest, just leave me here,” she says, with a light
kiss on his cheek. “It’s beautiful here, it’s where I’m comfortable. I’ll come down when I feel like it.”

“As you wish, Queenie.”

Arriving about sundown, Amos and Ruti Pasternak find the house abuzz, and straight off encounter Irene Fleg in the main room.
Amos knows (the wise Yael has warned him) that the French couple will be at the party, but the cane and the limp surprise
him. Ruti gives the Frenchwoman a brief sharp head-to-toe scrutiny, and goes off looking unworried, leaving Amos to chat with
his old friend.

“So that’s Ruti. She’s very pretty,” Irene Fleg says.

“Come on, Irene. What she is
very
, is smart. Ruti’s all right. She’s expecting again.”

“Glorious. Congratulations,
chéri
.”

“Why the cane, dear?”

“Oh, Amos, my skiing days are over. Third time I’ve broken my leg.”

They talk back and forth about her children and his one boy. In an abrupt change of tone Irene Fleg says, “You’re happy, aren’t
you? I was right, wasn’t I? Look at me, an old wreck.”

“Ridiculous! You’re lovely, Irene. Your leg will heal.”

For a fact the stringy face is not what it was, but it brightens in the subtle thin-lipped smile which he has not seen for
several years. “Never mind! Was I right?”

“You were right, Irene, yes.”

She takes and squeezes his hand. “And just quick enough,
mon vieux
, to beat you to it. Now it can be said,
n’est-ce pas
?” She laughs. He hesitates, then reluctantly laughs too.

In a corner of the room on two sofas, a vigorous argument is going on among four powerful Israelis about the cancelled Lavie
(Lion) aircraft. Very senior gentlemen they arc now, with wrinkled faces and padded midsections, and each has his decided
viewpoint. Benny Luria is furious, for Israel Aircraft Industries, of which he is vice chairman, has taken the main blow.
Designed and built in Israel, the Lavie was touted after its test flights as the best fighter-bomber in the world, but the
Americans have decided to sell Israel the F-18 rather than fund the Lavie. Sam Pasternak is arguing that the decision was
forced, prudent, and in Israel’s national interest. Kishote and Barak are mostly listening.

“Sam, you can be very detached and budget-conscious,” says Luria. “You’re in fine shape with the Merkava tank, chewing up
a fat chunk of the military budget. But the air force —”

“Nobody in the world will sell us a frontline tank,” Pasternak interrupts, “so we’re building one. The F-18’s a frontline
plane.”

Barak says, “What’s more, Benny, the air force approved the cancellation.”

Luria turns on Don Kishote, who heads an influential advisory board to the Prime Minister, called Future Assessment. “Approved,
with a budgetary knife at its throat. Right or wrong, Kishote?”

“Yes, it was a little like cancelling a seventh-month pregnancy, but —” says Kishote.

‘There!” exclaims Benny.

“Wait, I’m not finished, listen to me,” Kishote exclaims. The youngest of the four in his mid-fifties, he still sometimes
raps out words like a field commander. “There are three reasons for us to produce our own weapons systems, Benny. One, we
can do it cheaper. Or two, we can make a Jewish leap in technology that puts us ahead of the enemy, if not of the world. Or
three, we can’t buy the system anywhere. The Lavie’s a great aircraft, but when we can get the F-18 —”

“There go the lasers,” somebody calls, and there is a rush to the balconies. Ruti hears that Danny Luria has just showed up
and is on the roof, so she trots upstairs. She has seen very little of Danny, but has heard plenty. Ruti is very happily married,
and her Amos is even talked of as an eventual contender for Ramatkhal, but she does wonder a bit whether any of her old power
over Danny remains. Let’s see! She isn’t pregnant enough to show.

Under brightening stars in the twilit sky, to the orchestral thunder of a Bach toccata and fugue, the pencil-thin rays of
the lasers — crimson, green, blue, white — are crisscrossing the valley to paint fantastic patterns on the Old City walls.
Ruti sees the back of Danny’s head in the crowd at the rooftop rail. Push in there to him? No, no. Just wait, and watch the
pretty lasers …

“Here we are, Abba!” On the big balcony below, Aryeh and Bruria in uniform come to Don Kishote and hug him, both excited and
aglow from having marched in a parade. The laser colors are weaving and coruscating on the wall across the valley, forming
melting pictures — a roaring lion, a bounding deer, an F-16 — then dissolving into abstract designs. The massed singers in
the amphitheatre are bursting into a major chorus of the
Messiah:

Who is this King of Glory?

The Lord of Hosts

He is the King of Glory!

“Here’s your Uncle Lee, Aryeh,” says Kishote. “Lee, this is Bruria.”

“So this is Uncle Lee. But where are Spencer and Tamara?” Bruria blurts.

“At the last minute, Bruria, they couldn’t make it,” says Lee. “They were very sorry. So am I.”

“What! They’ve never been here, and now they miss this?”

Aryeh says in a tone to cut off Bruria, “I’m sure they had good cause.”

Lee is staring at them and smiling. “Aryeh, you were a scrawny kid when I saw you last. You’re a man, and you’ve got yourself
a magnificent wife.”

And He shall reign …

King of Glory, King of Glory …

“Ha!” says Bruria, and goes on in her broken kibbutznik English, raising her voice over the music. “Uncle Lee, we had made
such plans for them! Tomorrow Jericho and the Dead Sea, and after that —”