Yasmine (4 page)

I went to the adjutant and told him that I was an Arabist. “Wait here a minute,” he said and left. The minute stretched to twenty, and I thought he’d forgotten me. Then he returned and took me to the Intelligence Officer, who took me to the Operations Officer, who took me to the Brigade Second-in-Command, and he took me to the Brigade Commander.

The Brigade Commander showed me a conference table covered with a green cloth, gave me a printed sheet headed “The Instrument of Surrender of the City of Gaza,” and asked me to translate it into Arabic. I read the text and I didn’t care for it. “Rewrite it as you see fit,” he said. His calm manner and confidence in the city’s surrender reassured me. But when I returned to the camp my anxiety reawakened.

“We need an Abu Gilda, a one-eyed pirate who will demolish Pharaoh,” said Trabulsi.

“We need Moshe Dayan! The Arabs are afraid of him,” said Aflalo.

“What can Dayan do now?” I asked, in the self-important tone of a government functionary.

I couldn’t fall asleep that night. Fear haunted me. In the darkness I saw a man with his hands tied, being shot in the head. He fell and that was the end of him. One moment he existed, the next he didn’t. A scene from a film. Was that going to be my fate? That night, on the outskirts of Gaza, I made a vow: if I survive this in one piece, I’ll change my life.

In the morning I felt worn out, but was glad to get out of the sleeping bag, to drink the burnt coffee Trabulsi made and eat a slice of army-isssue bread with cubes of halva from the battle rations. The paper said Nasser was going to make an important speech at midday. I went to the Intelligence Officer and volunteered to translate it. He put me in a side room with a radio, paper and pencil.

What a voice he has, this Nasser! Soft and musical when he speaks about
Misr
, Egypt, bursting with vitality when he speaks about
al-karameh
, honour, furious when he attacks
al-istimar
, imperialism, lyrical when he speaks of
al-nasr
, victory. He has total command of his vocal cords and can hypnotise his audience. No question about it – Sawt al-Arab and Egyptian theatre have missed a great talent.

“I am your sacrifice, I am Egypt’s sacrifice,” he roared inspirationally, just as he did on 26 October 1954, when he addressed the crowd at Maidan al-Manshieh in Alexandria. I was a boy then, a student at the Da’at evening school in Mahaneh Yehudah in Jerusalem, and I heard the speech at Grandma’s house before classes started. I remember the intense excitement that affected everyone, when suddenly in the middle of his speech seven shots were heard. And I’ve never forgotten
what he said then, when the assassination attempt failed:

“Citizens, remain where you are…May my blood be your sacrifice, my life Egypt’s sacrifice. O free people, I speak to you after an attempt on your lives. The life of Gamal Abd el-Nasser is yours, since he comes from among you…I am no coward, I have fought for your honour. If Gamal Abd el-Nasser dies you will all be Gamal Abd el-Nasser. I shall fight for you to my dying day…I shall be a martyr for your sake…”

Even then I understood what must be happening in the heart of a young Arab, because on hearing this speech I myself was seized with the urge to grab a gun and start shooting the British overlords, the American imperialists, the agents of the West, and whoever else he told me to shoot. I was a youngster, fresh from the kibbutz youth movement where I’d been taught all about Israel’s founding fathers and the heroes of our war of independence. And here was their hero, a bold young leader who had seized power in Egypt, thrown out King Farouk, made General Naguib president of the new republic, and kicked out the British expats. In those days I dreamed of becoming a leader like him, and hoped he would make peace. Yet now the hero of my youth was giving the signal for his armed forces to pour into the Sinai desert and entrench themselves in its gullies and ravines in order to kill me. And for what? The Straits of Tiran were zipped open and then zipped shut. Was that a reason to kill and be killed?

Now, on the outskirts of Gaza, I am listening to Nasser’s speech on the Intelligence Officer’s radio, and hear him declaring that his goal is to restore the situation as it was before 1948. I try to concentrate on his words, not on his voice, but I can only retain the words when I listen to the tone and the music. It is thanks to the music that I remember his old
speeches verbatim, like something learned in childhood – the emphatic repetitions, the rise and fall of the voice, the rage he let loose and the insults he flung, the stormy outbursts, the dramatic silences, the measured imprecations.

“I am your sacrifice, I am Egypt’s sacrifice,” Nasser yells again. How many cockerels will he slaughter to satisfy his whims? And supposing he wins…they say he has chemical weapons! That’s enough, calm down, stop scaring yourself.

That evening the entertainer Shai Ophir was brought in. He caricatured Jews from here and there, in Arabic and in Yiddish, and we fell about laughing. For a few minutes I forgot the Sawt al-Arab broadcaster who had roared, in Hebrew this time, so we would all understand: “We’ll exterminate you, we’ll slaughter you, we’ll grind you to dust!”

At night the choking sensations came back, as if a vampire had me in a stranglehold. Come on then, how much longer do we have to wait? Memories were flooding in threatening to engulf me. I was two when World War II broke out and we fled from the house where I’d been born in the Muslim al-Muadham quarter of Baghdad, but the rioters had caught up with us in the Jewish quarter, where they killed and raped and robbed. I was ten when Israel’s war of independence began in Palestine. The Iraqis had arrested my Uncle Hizkel and we abandoned Baghdad like refugees fleeing for their lives. I was nineteen when the Suez War broke out, and my mother miscarried from anxiety. Now I’m approaching thirty and there is no end in sight!

The days pass at a snail’s pace. Another day of nerve-racking anticipation, and another, and now it’s Friday. It’s hot. The air
lies heavily like an ancient, immobile beast. People are silent, it’s like a Trappist monastery. Only Trabulsi walks around energetically, singing nationalist songs off key, distributing little flags to the men who are sprawled in the shade of the tanks, half-tracks and armoured cars, and demanding that they put them up right away.

“How long can this go on? I can’t live like this. Three weeks without Beitar Yerushalayim!” Hermosa grumbles, suffering withdrawal symptoms from his favourite football team.

“That really is too much,” Trabulsi agrees.

“Who wants war?” I ask, and everybody, Trabulsi and Aflalo, Katzav and Slutzky and Antebi, stare at me as if I’ve gone mad.

“I’ll tell you what I want, I want to eat cow’s foot soup with a lot of pepper, wash it down with a shot of arrack, and screw my neighbour’s daughter all night,” says Antebi in a mock Yemenite accent, illustrating his intentions with an eloquent hand gesture. Everybody laughs, and my mind flies back to loving nights with Yardena, and the longing is eating away at my heart.

On Fridays especially my thoughts turn to home, to my everyday life. Three weeks away from everything, here in this desert, it’s too much.

I want to sleep in my own bed, not in a sleeping bag, to wake up in underwear, not in uniform, in my little flat, not among tanks, to wash under running water without being inundated by sand storms, to crap in a toilet bowl and not in the field, to drink Noumi Basra tea rather than Trabulsi’s burnt coffee. I want to rise early, walk for an hour, go into Leonid’s Russian grocery for coffee with two fresh warm rolls, preferably scorched around the edges. I’m dreaming of the Mahaneh Yehudah market, where I’d buy fruit and vegetables from the
Iraqi stall-holder and demolish a portion of Suberi’s falafel with fenugreek and pepper relish.

I even miss the crying of my Orthodox neighbour’s latest newborn. Every year the woman produces a baby which wakes me at dawn with inconsolable wails, and she always takes her time before putting it to the breast.

I miss my routine, going to work in a leisurely way, arguing about trivialities with my fellow workers, chatting with Levanah, the delectable manager of the Minister’s office, though she’s always in a rush in case he needs her, even sitting in the canteen and gazing at the hairy legs of Flora, Brokelman’s secretary, and wondering why she doesn’t shave them.

I miss Fridays. Knock off work early, go home, wash the floor, take a shower, flop on the bed and listen to Classical by Request at five p.m., sit on my little balcony and watch my Orthodox neighbour lighting the sabbath candles, the glow on her face as she recites the blessing, her hands circling the flames to cherish the light. I like to pour myself a shot of slivowitz and at
six-thirty
listen to Um Kulthoum singing, then hurry over to Katamon to join my parents for the sabbath supper and eat cold
okra kubbeh
. God almighty, is this too much to ask?

Heat. Emptiness. Unease. Once again I drag myself to the silent shadow of the eucalyptus, lean against its trunk with my eyes shut, and try to calm myself by crushing leaves between my fingers.

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Nuri? I’ve been searching all over for you. The Intelligence Officer needs you right now!” My peace was shattered by the Intelligence sergeant, who dragged me back.

I put on the headphones. “Your eyes take me back to the
bygone days, teach me regret for the past and its pains,” sang Um Kulthoum. “What I saw before me, till my eyes fell on you, were my wasted days, how could they count as my existence?” God in heaven, Um Kulthoum used to sing me to sleep in my mother’s arms…

“What’s taking you so long?” the officer snapped.

“One moment, a little patience please,” I allowed myself to answer him back, and gained time by muttering, “let me figure out what’s going on here.” For a few moments I plunged into a blissful
tarab
. What is
tarab
, you may ask? How to translate it? Well now, Mister Orientalist, didn’t you spend four years studying Arabic language and literature? Call it a musical high, a thrill of excitement, sheer pleasure, intoxication by sound, a body’s song, a spiritual uplift, a soul’s orgasm, the oblivion of Allah and all His servants – all these add up to
tarab
.

For a moment I forgot the war. The queen was singing! Who can be compared to her, who can decipher the mysteries of her voice, the heart-thrilling quavers, the sweet ache she plants in the soul? Come on, don’t get carried away. She deserves to die, this queen. Yes, right now, when her friend Nasser is declaring war on us and she is doing nothing to stop him.

“So, what’s going on?” the officer prodded me.

“I think the wireless operators have silenced the network and are listening to Um Kulthoum. One of them has just told the other that communications will resume after the recital.”

“Are you serious? Could it be a trick to fool us?” The officer stared at me as if I’d gone mad. “How long will it take?”

“Can’t tell. Could be two or three hours. It depends…”

“I don’t understand anything any more!” he exclaimed, grabbing his head with both hands, and walked out.

Then the announcer introduced Sheikh Abu al-Ayneen
Shaisha reading from the Surat al-Ma’ida: “The bitterest enemies of the believers in Islam are the Jews and the
idol-worshippers
.” He went on to urge “Jihad is the duty of every devout Muslim, the only way to treat the enemy. It is a religious duty to kill them, and whoever does so has his place in heaven.”

The Sheikh’s voice is melodious and moving, an intoxicating
tarab
. I relish every syllable, drink in every word, and suddenly it strikes me. What an idiot I am! Hey, he’s calling on Muslims to kill you!

There were still plumes of smoke in the desert sky and explosions could still be heard, when I was summoned to the divisional adjutant’s tent. I rushed there with my heart in my mouth – my two brothers were in the Armoured Corps and I hadn’t heard a word from or about them.

“The minister you work for has asked us to release you immediately. You’re to be at his office tomorrow morning,” the adjutant said and turned back to the papers on his field desk. What happened, why is he sending for me? I was agitated and it was a while before I took it in – I was free, discharged, going home, the war’s over.

I had almost nothing to pack – most of my things had been scattered all over the place. I said goodbye to my mates and ran back to the adjutancy for my travel discharge. While I was there I enquired about my brothers. The girl who operated the
field-phone
took a long time to reach the right contact, and finally said, “Moshe Imari’s OK, Yaacov has been slightly wounded.”

“Yaacov?” It took me a moment to realise she was referring to my brother Kabi. “Where was he wounded?”

“They’ll tell you at the Mayor’s office,” she said. And when I asked which hospital he was in, she couldn’t say.

1 hitched a ride in a command-car that was taking soldiers
back from the Sinai. When we had taken refuge in the shade of the tanks, consumed by anxiety and waiting for the order to advance, I’d made all sorts of promises to myself if only I survived this war, even if slightly wounded, which would be a lucky outcome. Now, hearing that Kabi was wounded, I was desperately worried for him. What on earth had made him rush back from London?

I waited a while at the pick-up stop at Re’em junction, as one by one vehicles collected the waiting soldiers. When my turn came an ancient Susita with a bearded, burly driver of about forty drew up. “Excuse the jalopy,” he apologised, adding that he had room for only one passenger. He straightened the kippah on his head, lit a cigarette and turned up the radio, which was broadcasting a report on the battle at Abu Agheila. His face was tight with tension and he muttered unintelligibly. I was totally exhausted, my mind in a fog of forgetfulness, my eyes sore and their lids heavy. Now and then I dozed off for a few seconds, feeling the sweet seduction of sleep, then shook myself awake, startled to hear what the bearded man was saying:

“According to the Midrash: When the Temple fell Abraham appeared before the Almighty, Blessed Be He, weeping and tearing out his beard and hair, rending his clothes and throwing ashes on his head. ‘How am I different from all nations and tongues that I should thus be humiliated and dishonoured?’ the driver quoted, his eyes glittering, while the cigarette dangled from his mouth and the ash fell on his clothes. “And here we are – Jerusalem the Holy is in our hands, the Sinai desert, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Jordan – all ours.”

The car swerved off the road and when he swung back onto the broken asphalt, a huge truck appeared from nowhere in
front of us. He steered sharply to the right, and again slid off the road. My heart was beating wildly.

“We turned their tanks into bonfires,” came a voice from the radio, and in my mind I saw Trabulsi’s tank bursting into immense yellow flames, while I was buried in the sand, in infernal heat, a thick smell of smoke and burnt flesh filling my nostrils. There seemed to be someone crying out behind the noise of explosions. Was it Trabulsi calling for help?

“You hear?” the driver shook me and turned off the radio. “Isaiah says: Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded, they shall be as nothing, and those that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee.”

His voice seemed remote and indistinct, like a failing microphone. When I made no answer he turned the radio on again.

“But when I come today to sing your praises, to crown you with garlands, I’m but the least of your children, the last of the poets,” Shuli Natan’s silvery voice came over the radio. My companion happily joined in, nodding vigorously: “Jerusalem of gold, of copper and of light…” I had first heard those lyrics just a few weeks earlier when I was dozing in Yardena’s arms in her roof apartment in the German Colony. The annual song festival was being broadcast, and when I woke up and asked which song had won, she said, “Something wonderful,” stroking the back of my neck. Oh Yardena!

“Now they’ll be crawling on their knees,” my companion said with relish. “Nineteen years they didn’t let us pray at the Wall,
now the Almighty has settled their account. It is the day of joy in God,” he sang again. “Why don’t you sing? Want some coffee?” he stopped on the roadside and poured black coffee for me from an old thermos flask.

Now from the radio came the thick voice of Levi Eshkol, the Prime Minister: “This may be a time of destiny, from which a new order and new relations will spring in the region, so we may live in peace in our homes, on our lands, and continue the task of settlement, of the ingathering of the exiles, our spiritual, cultural and moral work. We have promised much to the world, to the Jewish people, and to ourselves.”

On the steep ascent from Sha’ar HaGai where the skeletons of burnt-out armoured vehicles, mementoes of the ’48 war, keep vigil on either side of the road, the jalopy began to sputter and cough. “That’s it, no more wars,” he said. “Now we can have some rest, huh?” I grunted and turned on my side, wishing he would leave me alone.

Up on the hilltop at Shoresh I sat up and opened the window. There they were, the mountains of Jerusalem. I love this air, the wind that blows here. I breathed deeply, excitement rising in my chest. For a moment I felt dizzy. Home. Who knows what news awaits me there, who came back safely and who did not, who was wounded and who remained whole. I felt tense, but also longed to sleep, not to see or hear or know anything, just hide till everything became clear. Anxieties overshadowed the joy of freedom. In a little while I’ll inquire at the Mayor’s office which hospital Kabi’s in.

I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs, again, and again. Levanah, the priestess of health, head of the Minister’s office, says it’s an anxiety-relieving exercise.

“Can you drop me off at Teddy Kollek’s office?” I asked.

“I can, it’s on my way to the German Colony.”

“The German Colony? That’s better still…” I said, choking.

I used the public phone on the corner of Rahel Imenu and Emek Refaim to call Sandra, Kabi’s girlfriend.

“He was wounded in the shoulder. They took him to the hospital in Ashkelon. I saw him there this morning. I’ll go again tomorrow afternoon. Want to come?”

“Definitely.”

“But don’t tell your parents yet, all right?” she added, as if she’d been brought up in our family and trained like us to spare them anxiety and sorrow.

My dusty uniform, kitbag and bristly face indicated where I had been. A passerby nodded to me, saying, “Welcome back!” The notice board beside the municipal swimming pool – the “pool of abomination,” as it was called by Orthodox Jews because of the mixed bathing – bore army bereavement notices in standard phrasing. I stood there a long time, reading the names. Then I went to a kiosk and asked for Escort cigarettes and the newspapers, but couldn’t find my wallet. I must have lost it on the way. Never mind the money, call it a penance – but my documents!

“Here you are.” The man handed me the papers and cigarettes.

“Sorry, I lost my wallet.”

“Never mind. Pay me another time.”

“No thanks.” I walked away and immediately regretted it.

I walked slowly and stopped in front of the pharmacy. Here I used to buy lubricated condoms. Yardena wouldn’t sleep with me without them. I’d slip into the pharmacy when it was empty and blush as I asked for “preservatives,” as though calling
condoms by name was too embarrassing and vulgar. I walked on, and finally made myself look up at Yardena’s roof-top flat. Was she at home? Was she alone? If she hadn’t ditched me before the war I’d be running up the stairs two at a time to fall into her arms in her spacious and colourful room, decorated with reproductions of Kandinsky, Gauguin, Manet. In the north corner of the room stood the bed – a huge bridal bed Yardena had found in the flea market in Jaffa, a real one-off. It had four wooden posts carved with pomegranates, and was scattered with lots of bright cushions that she had made herself. Right now I’d push some cushions under her to raise her rounded hips, and we’d plunge into frantic lovemaking.

I gazed up at the flat. Go on up, I told myself – don’t they say, “All is fair in love and war”? I took a step forward, but then stopped. What would I say to her? What if she’s not alone? Keep your self-respect. Better walk away, she isn’t yours any more.

My legs felt strangely weak, but I carried on walking up Yohanan Ben Zakkai Street and from there to the Katamon. The approach to the immigrant housing estate is pretty wretched, narrow dirt roads, the houses a clutter of little cubes of raw stone. Here too was a hoarding with death notices. Seventeen names! So many from one immigrant community. I read the names – one of them, Ovadiah Zakkai, hit me hard. I knew him as a boy in the neighbourhood, then we met again at the Hebrew University – he being the first Kurdish immigrant to make it there. He had hoped to get his doctorate in America. The notice told me he’d been a captain in the artillery. I remembered seeing him here, on Antigonus Street, after he received his M.A. in Chemistry – broad-shouldered and beaming, followed by the great Zakkai clan walking in
procession, the women ululating with joy. My mouth became dry.

Yaacov Broshi was also on the board. Yaacov, the son of the synagogue caretaker, who became the owner of a wedding hall in another neighbourhood. He was a clever, sociable lad, who even in his teens had all kinds of money-making plans. Once his mother asked my mother, “Why don’t your sons come to synagogue?” Mother blushed in confusion but they still became friends.

I saw her from afar, standing on the balcony. “Nuri!” she shouted, and immediately came out of the house, ran like a country girl down the hillside, and fell into my arms. She hugged and kissed me and stroked my stubbly face, tears running down her cheeks.

“
Ayni uwain al daghb,
my eyes are fixed to the road, waiting for my children to come, my heart felt you would come today,” she said as we entered the house.

“Abu Kabi, get up, Nuri’s here,” she called to Father, while her hands probed my shoulders and arms like a mother examining her newborn.

Father was lying on the bed dressed, despite the heat, in thick cotton pyjamas. “
Al-hamdu lillah, ibni
, thank God, my son, welcome back!” His arms encircled my body and pressed me to him as they used to do when I was a child and his embrace was my absolute protection. He held me for a long time without loosening his grip. The warmth and scent of his body stilled my anxiety. “I thank God that you’ve come back to us safe and sound,” he said with a sigh of relief.

“Sit down, son, let’s look at you. Rest,” said Mother, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Would you like to shower? There is hot
water. Every day I turn on the boiler, hoping you will all come home. Blessed be He and blessed be His name, my Nuri has come back safely…” Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“That’s enough, Um Kabi,” my father said softly and turned to me. “Have you heard from Kabi and Moshi?”

“I spoke to Kabi yesterday,” I lied. “Nothing to worry about. And Moshi should be discharged soon, being a farmer.”

“Why did Kabi have to come back from London, aren’t you and Moshi enough?” Mother protested, peering at me closely. “You’ve lost weight, my son. Stay here a few days, rest and eat properly.”

She went to the kitchen and came back with a tray bearing a finjan of coffee with cardamom for me and tea with mint for Father. It was a pleasure to drink the excellent coffee, after so many days of sour dishwater. “Father, do you have a cigarette?”

“No, son. My throat was hurting so I didn’t buy any.”

My father without cigarettes? He’s a chain-smoker and usually keeps several packets at home. He looked so weak and pale, lying in bed in the middle of the day, in the thick pyjamas.

“Have you consulted an ear, nose, and throat specialist?” I asked.

“What throat? Never mind his throat, he’s had a heart attack!” said Mother, and I was struck dumb.

“Why are you worrying him, he’s just come back from the war,” Father hushed her. Deeply shaken, I drew my chair close to his bed, took his big hand and pressed it to my cheek. What had happened? Why a heart attack? Where did that come from? A deluge of pity flooded me, I wanted to hold his head and kiss it.

“Don’t worry,” Father said in a soothing voice. “I got over it all right.”

Mother couldn’t contain herself. “All right you call it? Don’t ask what we’ve been through. I can’t sleep a wink, I’m jumping at the slightest noise – footsteps on the stairs and I collapse. And your Father lights one cigarette with another, his ear glued to the radio all day and all night.
Matit Israil, jannat Israil!
– Israel is dead, Israel has gone mad! – they kept screaming, God damn them. Your Father couldn’t rest, he fell asleep with the radio on, I turned it off and he turned it on again, and so on night after night. Then one morning – crash! He fell on the bed, couldn’t breathe, was suffocating in my hands, his face all wet with cold sweat. God Almighty, what to do? How have I sinned? I ran out on the balcony and yelled and yelled. My soul almost flew away by the time the ambulance arrived. Don’t ask what we’ve been through,” she concluded with a heavy sigh.

I glanced round the room and saw just how abject it was: a small windowless space, low ceiling, a dangling lightbulb. On the wall hung a photograph of us before leaving Baghdad. Mother and Father in the middle, elegantly dressed, their faces bright with hope. Mother is pregnant, my brother Moshi is looking serious, Kabi is trying not to grin, I’m tilting my head to one side in a dreamy posture. I like this picture. Father cut it out of our travel document and gave it to a photographer who enlarged and framed it.