“You, Sheva, doing the frug? You’re more likely to do skydiving.”
“I once did a parachute jump, Yael. Just to do it.”
“You did? How was it?”
“Expensive. I was making large pledges all the way down.”
***
Later Benny Luria and Yael sat on the balcony of an apartment on Sunset Boulevard. Below them the million lights of Los Angeles twinkled under an unusually clear starry sky. They talked about the chances of war until Aryeh went off to bed. “So, you were going to make a pile in three years, Yael,” her brother said, “and come back to live like a queen. What happened?”
She shrugged. “One thing and another.”
“Are you ever coming back?”
“Who knows? Yossi talks divorce, off and on, but we just drift along, because of Aryeh.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. I admire Yossi.” He glanced around at the terrace and the large living room behind the French doors. “You’re doing all right here, I’ll say that.”
“No complaints.”
“Yossi told me you were buying a house.”
“It got him angry, so I pulled out. Just as well! Aryeh went back home for a whole year—that was our agreement—and I’d have gone mad in that big place. We’re comfortable here.”
“What do you do for a love life?”
“Is it any of your business?”
“No.”
Yael hesitated. “Oh, well, I have friends. As I’m sure Yossi has. You too, for that matter.”
“Not as much as you might think. Not nowadays.”
The brother and sister looked at each other in the vague orange light of one terrace lamp.
“Oh?”
“The squadron takes time and energy.”
“No doubt.” Skeptical tone, lopsided grin.
“Dov’s started basic training in the pilot course.”
“That, you wrote me. So?”
“I’m finding I’m like all the other parents of pilots. I worry. I worry like anything.” After a silence Benny said, “You’ve heard of the old rabbi they call the Ezrakh?”
“Of course. The one who’s never set foot outside Israel. Son-in-law’s the chief rabbi in Haifa.”
“That’s him. I went to see him about a boy who got killed in flight school. The parents asked me to.” Benny lit a cigarette and was briefly silent. “Lives like a beggar in a hole in the wall in Jerusalem, this Ezrakh, surrounded by books. He asked me amazingly sharp questions about flying, and about plane maintenance and performance. Not a word about religion, except when he talked of the dead boy. Interesting guy, the Ezrakh. I’ve taken to visiting him now and then.”
Yael cocked her head at him, smiling. “Are you telling me, Benny Luria, that you’re getting religion and laying off the ladies?”
Long pause. The answer was slow and thoughtful. “Lots of time to think, Yael, up in the sky. Lots of solitude. We keep overflying the Sinai, where Moses received the Commandments. Talking to our flight controllers three thousand years later, we use the same language he did. That’s interesting, isn’t it? …Do you have some more soda?”
A gentle breeze blew on the terrace, wafting the scent of orange blossoms from dwarf trees in tubs. The smell made Benny homesick, for he had done unending picking and sorting of oranges as a boy. Yael handed him a tall glass tinkling with ice. “Come on. Are you giving up Eva, too?”
“Who’s Eva?”
She laughed. “I see. They say that this Ezrakh is a wonder worker. If you give up Eva I’ll believe it.”
“How do you feel about giving up Aryeh?” No answer. “Is he packed and ready? Our plane’s at seven A.M.”
“He’s ready. Look, I made a deal with Yossi, so once more he’s going home.”
“I’ve talked to that kid, Yael. He won’t come back here again. He’s growing up, and he hates it.”
“Did you see him dancing? He seemed not too unhappy or out of place.”
“What’s this Sheva Leavis like, Yael? Man of mystery, hey?”
“He’s a giant and a gentleman. Now look, Benny, will there be a war? If I thought so I’d come home now with you and Aryeh.”
“Why?”
“Just to be there.”
“It takes a war?”
Yael shook her head impatiently. “I asked you a question.”
“How do I know? It’s all up to Nasser. He’s grabbed the initiative, that’s for sure. Since B.G. stepped down, our politicians are all just Yiddisheh mammehs.”
“Of all the times for Aryeh to go back,” Yael fretted, “when there may be a war! And if I know Don Kishote, he’ll ride the first tank into Sinai.”
“Who else?”
***
Next day toward evening Luria sat on another terrace, this one overlooking the Potomac, with Zev Barak and a bony-faced old CIA man in a gray suit with a vest and a watch chain. “What you’re saying about the MiG-21 in combat confirms our intelligence,” said Cunningham. “Especially the vulnerability of the fuel tanks.”
“Yes, that’s a definite weak spot, sir, where the wing joins the fuselage.”
“Colonel, we’d be glad to have a written report on your encounter with the MiGs, for very restricted use and no attribution.”
Benny’s eyes went to the military attaché. “No problem, Chris,” said Barak. “Also you’ll get the raw pilot debriefings and prints of the combat films.”
“Most helpful, all that.”
“Now ask Benny any questions you want.”
“That wide turning circle of the MiGs in dogfighting, Colonel—limits of the plane or excessive pilot caution?”
“It’s not the plane, sir. I’ve test-flown a MiG.”
Cunningham put down his drink and stared. “How the Sam Hill did you do that?”
But this was too much for the aviator, and he hesitated, though Barak had assured him that Christian Cunningham was a trusted friend. Obsessive secrecy was ingrained in the air force.
“An Iraqi pilot was induced to defect, Chris,” Barak said, “and bring us the plane.”
“Really?” Cunningham’s heavy eyebrows arched over thick glasses. “Remarkable coup.”
“Yes, it was mainly Pasternak’s doing, and took more than a year.”
“Well! Any other weaknesses, Colonel, from where the pilot sits?”
“Some blind spots, sir. Not three-hundred-sixty-degree vision, as in the Mirage. And the firing of the guns is erratic. But it’s a fine aircraft.”
Trotting down the brick stairs, a thin bespectacled young woman in a sleeveless summer dress gave Benny a glass of soda, and handed Christian Cunningham a large sealed envelope. “From your office, Father.”
Cunningham unfolded and read a Teletype sheet. “Well! So far so good. Nasser has not yet closed the Straits of Tiran. Sharm el Sheikh’s full of Egyptian soldiers now, but your traffic is still going through.”
“Closing the straits is a casus belli,” said Luria. “He knows that.”
Barak glanced at his wristwatch. “U Thant’s flying to Cairo right now. Maybe Nasser’s waiting to see what the UN’s offering him not to close the straits.”
“Sir, my turn,” Luria spoke up in a silence. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“What’s Nasser really up to, in the CIA view? Does he calculate the Arabs can pull it off this time?”
Short cold laugh. “Emily, may I have another old-fashioned?”
She jumped up. “Colonel?”
“No, thank you.”
“Zev?”
Barak shook his head. As she brushed past Benny Luria he caught a whiff of sweet scent, which with the oddly familiar “Zev,” stirred his interest in her.
“What’s Nasser up to? Well, one can speculate, Colonel, but the real question is, what are the Russians up to? They’re obviously fomenting all this. Lately Russian prestige in the Third World has been sinking,” said Cunningham, his cool colorless voice taking on subtle overtones of delig
ht, “what with Marxist regimes getting overthrown one after another—Sukarno, Nkrumah, Ben Bella—and we in the agency, may I say, have not been totally uninvolved.”
Barak put in, “Sam Pasternak says you’ve done wonders.”
“Well! From Sam, praise indeed. At any rate, Syria is now the star on Russia’s bedraggled Third World Christmas tree, so they’re out to build her up, perhaps even to grab Arab leadership for this dictator Assad from Nasser, who’s an unreliable cuss. So we estimate, but who knows? Those fellows in the Kremlin are like sideshow magicians, they pour red wine and white wine from the same bottle.”
Cunningham took a long swig at the old-fashioned his daughter brought him, letting that image sink in.
“Brilliant moves and boneheaded mistakes! Czars, commissars, no difference, same Russian nature. And there’s the key to the enigma that baffled Churchill. One can try to guess their next brilliant move, but who can anticipate the folly of a fool?” A plane came roaring overhead, and Cunningham paused.
“What are those little flashes on your lawn?” inquired Luria as the noise died off.
“Those are fireflies,” said Barak. “Summer insects that light up.”
“Beautiful. Part of the mating process, hey?”
The voice of Cunningham’s daughter in the gloom. “Exactly, Colonel Luria.”
“Chris, this is not a mere crisis over prestige,” said Barak. “Nasser’s armor is rolling up to our Negev border. That’s another casus belli, and he knows it.”
The CIA man nodded. “It’s getting out of control because of stupid Soviet tactics. They’ve told Nasser that you’ve got twelve brigades poised to invade Syria. Nasser’s protecting his own Arab leadership role by sending the armor into Sinai. He has to do that much.”
“Then it’s Rotem again!” Benny Luria exclaimed to Barak. “Same exact damn thing as Rotem, Nasser sending in the armor because he claims we’re about to attack Syria. Both times, complete fabrications.”
“Of course,” said Cunningham, “or the Russians would have taken up Israel’s invitation to inspect your border with Syria. We know what their ambassador replied, though it’s not public.”
Emily asked, “Well, what did he say?”
“That the Soviet Union had no need to verify facts.”
The airman restlessly turned in his chair. “Sir, can I use your phone?”
“Of course. Come with me.”
Luria followed Cunningham up the stairs.
Barak and Emily looked at each other. He said quietly, “Hi.”
“Wolf, how’s Galia?” Low intimate tone.
“Her arm’s in a cast. Not a serious fracture, thank God.”
“What happened? All you said over the phone was you wouldn’t be at the Growlery because you had to take her to the hospital.”
“She fell off her bike.”
“Is that all?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There’s a thick veil of gloom enveloping you. I feel shut out, and I know you feel rotten about not being in Israel now. It’s written all over you.”
“My government wants me here.”
“There’s a fresh pile of pistachios in the Growlery, if that’s any comfort. And plenty of Brunello. Bear it in mind, love.”
“Sure enough, Queenie.”
***
With a rattle of gravel, Barak’s car pulled away from the house up a steep curving driveway through leafy trees. “Look Benny, relax. If you’re called back before the banquet tomorrow night, the ambassador will make the speech or I will.”
“Interesting guy, Christian Cunningham. What about that daughter? What does she do?”
“Headmistress of a girls school.”
“Does she live with him?”
“He’s a widower, so she’s there a lot.”
The car crossed a bridge over the Potomac, slowed by heavy traffic both ways. The lit-up monuments and Capitol dome came in sight. Benny asked, “How do you like it here?”
“It’s fine.”
“You seem depressed.”
“I’m just hoping there’s no war.”
“It’s inevitable now. Of all times, damn it, that there had to be four UJA banquets in a week! And for me to get stuck with them!”
“Maybe that’s why Nasser moved on the fifteenth, Benny. To catch us off guard, celebrating Independence Day.”
“Funny about that daughter, Zev. She’s no beauty, but there’s something sexy about her.”
Barak grunted. “You’ve just been away from Irit too long. And from Eva.”
“Could be.”
Getting out of the elevator, they heard music in Barak’s apartment. Aryeh was teaching the frug to a skinny girl with her arm in a sling, and a smaller girl was clumsily frugging by herself. Nakhama jumped up and turned off the music. “Darling, Noah just phoned from Haifa. His ship’s gone on full war alert.”
“That’s it,” said Luria. “I’ll be called back.”
Barak said, “Not necessarily, the navy’s the jumpy service.”
“And guess what, Zev?” Nakhama said. “You’ve got a nephew! Lena had a boy, Noah says, and your brother Michael’s in heaven.”
“Well, well!” said Benny. “Let’s put him down for pilot training in 1985.”
Nakhama laughed. Barak said, “Let’s get through 1967 first.”
“To bed, Aryeh,” the airman said. “We may have to make an early start.” He led away the protesting boy, and Barak’s daughters went off to their room.
“So what does Mr. Cunningham say, Zev?” Nakhama put on an apron. “Does the CIA know anything? Is it going to be war?”
“He says it’s all out of control now.”
“Was Emily there?”
“She came in for a drink.”
“Noah says people are starting to hoard gasoline, Zev, and buying out the food stores and markets. Scout troops are on civil defense duty, cleaning and stocking up the air raid shelters, piling sandbags at the schools….” Nakhama sighed, and shook her head. “Back to 1948, hah?”
When Benny Luria was shaken awake he could not at first remember which city he was in. “Well, Benny, this time you were right.” Bare-chested, in undershorts, Barak switched on a lamp. “The embassy phoned. Teletype calls you home at once. Nasser has closed the straits.”
Benny sat up alertly on the living room couch, saying, “What’s the time?”
“After two. An embassy car will take you to New York. It’s your best chance. Pan Am flies to London at nine. Nakhama’s making breakfast. Aryeh’s getting dressed.”
“Flags up, Zev!”
“Looks that way.”
***
Speaking without a note that night at the Washington Hilton in Luria’s place, Zev Barak talked as though he had planned, written, and revised a speech for weeks, ending up after an impassioned half hour punctuated by applause:
“We don’t want one more inch of territory than we have! Let our neighbors only make real peace with us, and we Jews will shove our planes and tanks into the sea!” Applause again interrupted him. When it subsided he went on with quiet intensity. “Fighting isn’t a Jewish occupation. It hasn’t been since the time of the Maccabees. But in Europe we learned two bitter lessons we’ll never forget. We must have a home, and we must be able to defend it. Now we have a home, and if it’s attacked, we’ll beat our enemies to their knees as we’ve done before, whatever the cost, because EN BRERA—unlike our enemies, we have no choice! No choice but victory!”
He stepped back from the podium. At a front table with Cunningham, Nakhama, and two U.S. army generals, Emily leaped up, ardently applauding like the others in the ballroom, while her father and the generals stayed in their seats, whispering to each other. Nakhama too sat without clapping (let others applaud her husband!) and Christian Cunningham leaned to her and spoke through the applause. “Mrs. Barak, your husband’s an orator! An unsuspected talent.”
“Well, he’s a quiet man. But when he has something to say, he can
say it.” As Emily sat down Nakhama added, “Mr. Cunningham, you and Emily must come to dinner at our flat someday soon.”
“With pleasure. Emily, you arrange it.”
“Yes, Father,” said Emily, with an odd churn at her heart.
***
In a London airport hotel, where Aryeh fell asleep at once, Luria watched television until the test pattern squealed. The final pictures were of the Middle East crisis: Nasser all smiles as he fielded press questions about his political triumph in closing the Straits of Tiran; a grim-faced Israeli government spokesman in an open-necked white shirt, making flustered responses to a barrage of shouted queries; more footage of screaming fist-shaking mobs in Arab capitals; and to Luria most convincing and worrisome, shots of darkened deserted streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, of sandbagged shops and school buildings, of children being herded down into shelters carrying their nightclothes, of man-on-the-street interviews selected to convey fright and despair among the Israelis.
Setting foot in Israel later that day, Benny Luria saw at once how accurate the TV news had been about the people’s mood. The blue-uniformed woman at the immigration window looked up from his passport with scared eyes. “So, Colonel, you’ve come back for the war, eh?”
“Just in case there is one.”
“I lost a brother in 1956.”
“Terrible. I’m sorry.”
“I can’t take any more. I’ve just had another baby, and my husband’s in tanks.” As she stamped and returned the passport she managed a woeful smile. “Well, Colonel, if we do have to fight, with God’s help please break their bones this time. Once for all!”
He was relieved to see only people dressed like tourists lined up at exit gates or sitting around the desolate terminal. When trouble threatened, they were best out from underfoot. So far as he could judge, Israelis were not fleeing. However alarmed, they were staying to face it.
Aryeh suddenly said as they walked out into the sunshine, “Dode Benny, I’m so glad to be home! When do I see Abba?”
“As soon as I can find him.”
“I want to see Dov, too.”
“Him you may see right away.” He waved to his driver, approaching in an army car. On the front pages of the papers the driver handed him, Benny discerned the same lugubrious state of mind, heightened by the hysterical calamity-mongering of Israeli journalism. Disaster sold papers in this country, and the bigger and blacker or redder the headlines, the faster copies were snapped up. It seemed to Benny sometimes that his people were hooked on the adrenaline of crisis. In combat flying that adrenaline worked to quicken response, sharpen perception, rouse fighting anger. Bottled up with no outlet of action, it was a shot of chemical that gave a flush to civilian nerves at once scary, pleasurable, futile, and addictive.