“Oh, you noticed. Yes, that’s Paul.”
“How far has it gone?”
“Yossi, don’t start that—”
“Shayna, I think it’s over with Yael and me. I’ve tried to make it go for Aryeh’s sake, but—”
Shayna’s reserve broke. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Yossi, how great a fool can you be? Yael will never let you go. You’re a star of the armor force. What’s more, she’ll never give up Aryeh, and neither will you. You’re talking nonsense.”
“What you don’t understand,” he said with an effort at patience, “is what Los Angeles is like. Yael wants to stay there.”
“She says so?”
“Her brother Benny just came back from there. She’s in a luxury flat in Beverly Hills, and up to her neck in moneymaking.”
“Is there another man?”
“I don’t know, and one trouble is, I don’t much care.”
Aryeh appeared in his pajamas. “Aunt Shayna, this was on my bed.”
Kishote took the boardwalk picture, and glanced from it to Shayna. It was the same photograph Aryeh had had in his room in Los Angeles. Yossi wondered just how perceptive this ten-year-old of his might be. “Aryeh, I’m going now. Give me a kiss, be a good lad, and obey Aunt Shayna. Back to bed.”
Aryeh hugged and kissed his father, and went out.
Kishote said, tapping the picture, “Those were the days, eh?”
“Yossi, people say if a war starts the Iraqi or Syrian air force may bomb Haifa right away. Should I take Aryeh someplace else?” The awkward change of subject failed. He came and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Goodbye. Stay where you are. Shayna, what if Yael sets me free? I tell you it’s coming. It has to.”
Hoarsely she quoted Ecclesiastes. “‘What’s crooked can’t be made straight.’”
“Motek, scrap that Canadian.”
“Go, or I’ll push you down the stairs.”
“I love you, Shayna.”
“We’re not on the Tel Aviv boardwalk, Kishote. That was a million years ago. God protect your going.”
***
Next morning in Israel’s leading newspaper, Ha’aretz, a front-page editorial:
…If we could believe that Eshkol was really capable of navigating the ship of state in these critical days, we would willingly follow him. But we have no such belief after Eshkol’s radio address last night…. The proposal that Ben Gurion be entrusted with the premiership and Moshe Dayan with the Ministry of Defense, while Eshkol is given charge of domestic affairs, seems to us a wise one….
In the press, on the radio, in street rallies, such was the unvarying reaction to Eshkol’s speech. The mounting cry was “Dayan!” Moshe Dayan, of the legendary dash through Lod and Ramle; Moshe Dayan, the fourth Ramatkhal, who had turned Zahal into a real army; Moshe Dayan, the victor of Sinai, moshavnik, ice-blooded fighter, war correspondent, farmer, Minister of Agriculture, Knesset member, world figure with the eye patch—Moshe Dayan for Minister of Defense! And let bumbling deflated Eshkol linger on as a figurehead Prime Minister, while the national hero took power…
Nasser addressed the Egyptian National Assembly that same day. The confident exuberant speech proclaimed that the time was now ripe to “restore conditions in Palestine to what they were in 1948”; that is, before Israel existed. This made a sensation in Arab lands. King Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo to embrace and kiss Nasser on world television. They had been attacking each other for years, right up to the day of the speech. The milder terms traded had been coward, oppressor, robber, scoundrel, lackey, spy, dog, and so on. The more eloquent Nasser had had the better of the exchange, with the Hashemite harlot and the treacherous dwarf. Overnight all that changed. They signed a military pact, and the treacherous dwarf brought an Egyptian general back to Jordan to command his army.
The PLO leader, one Ahmed Shukairy, his bearded face radiant with delight, now spoke up from the Old City on world TV. His forces would join the war, he vowed, and after a swift Arab victory all Jews not born in Palestine would be sent back where they came from. As for those born there—the sabras, about half the Israelis—those who survived would be permitted to stay. “I estimate, however,” he added, “that none will survive.”
34
Pasternak’s Mission
At a desk piled with letters, cables, invoices, all the paper blizzard of the crisis, Zev Barak was on the telephone with a dealer in Brazil, a fellow far on the shady side, who could however deliver certain weapons in quantity, reliably and fast. Barak and his staff were urgently lining up not only resupply of munitions and matériel from every available source, plus ways and means of delivering them, but also foreign airfields where despite Arab threats cargo planes could land and refuel. Just as urgently, he was staying in touch with the Pentagon, where a few high officers were all-out for Israel and others were dragging their feet like State Department functionaries. Barak was getting things done, and the ambassador had already commended him in the cables, but the job was what the Bible called “sitting on the weaponry,” not facing the enemy. That gnawed at him, and keeping very busy was the best way to dull the gnaw.
His private line rang. That could be only Nakhama, or a certain Pentagon insider, or possibly Emily. He put the Brazilian on hold long enough to pick it up. “Oh, it’s you. Call you back, Queenie.”
“Please, dear. At school.”
The conversation with the man in Brazil on the open international line, laced with cabalism, code, hints, and double-talk, took a while to conclude.
“Emily? What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you, dear. I don’t think I’ll be able to come to dinner tonight. I’m terribly sorry. Father’s coming, and he’s the one Nakhama really invited, so—”
“And you, why not?”
“Well, there’s this girl, Ethel Windom. She fell off a horse. It may be serious. I’d better stick around until I hear from the hospital.”
“Emily, you’re lying.”
“I am not. She got thrown headfirst on a stone fence and broke her nose. Lost a front tooth, too. Question is whether she also has a concussion.”
“I’ll expect you at seven. Be there.”
“Zev Barak, confound you, I believed you when you said Galia fell off a bike and broke her wrist.”
“That was the truth.”
“Was it? Maybe you were just out of the mood. How am I to know?”
“Emily, when you lie, which is seldom, your voice goes queer, like Donald Duck. Nakhama’s working hard, making a nice couscous dinner. See you at seven.”
“No, no, Wolf! And I don’t sound like Donald Duck.”
“Yes, yes, on both points, Queenie. Goodbye.”
The horse excuse had been one of several Emily had been weighing: a fire in the school kitchen, a robbery in the dormitory, and the too banal splitting headache. Of all things she did not want to have dinner in Nakhama Barak’s flat. No good could come of it. So spoke her gut. When the school day was over she went to the Growlery, showered, and lay down, hoping to fall asleep, wake up well into dinnertime, and telephone abject apologies, explaining that Ethel Windom was showing symptoms of a brain hemorrhage. After an hour of sleepless tossing she dressed in a hurry and rocketed to the apartment house on Connecticut Avenue. As she drove, the first item on the radio news was of more Arab countries, small ones on the Persian Gulf and also Saudi Arabia, joining Nasser’s military pact to “surgically remove the Zionist cancer from Palestine.”
***
“Superb couscous,” Cunningham said to Nakhama, digging in with appetite. “The first time I met Sam Pasternak we ate couscous. Marseilles, May ’44. The OSS was doing advance work for the landings in southern France. The Jewish underground was a big help.”
Watching her austere, usually laconic father play up to the dark fleshy woman as he rambled on about the sabotaging of German troop trains, Emily could see that he really liked Zev’s wife. Not too hard to understand! She exuded natural warmth, her black-brown eyes were very cle
ver, her smiles alert and appreciative. Her English was now passable, and her accent piquant. Altogether an attractive lucky woman; yet Emily realized that she truly did not envy Nakhama Barak, and had no yearning to supplant her. In that respect at least she was not quite the guilty “other woman.” The place she held in Barak’s life, though passionate, was minor. Israel, his wife, his children, and the army owned most of him. That was that.
Incomplete though her love life was, Emily was grateful for it as a sheer grant from heaven; so she was thinking as she sat mum at Nakhama Barak’s table, waiting for the first chance to get away. She had other loves. She loved teaching French literature, she loved the girls, and she loved nature, so close at hand in Middleburg. She loved the horses. Riding through the woods and over the green or snowy fields was a durable joy. So were the deer, the foxes, and the birds: cardinals, jays, martins, grosbeaks, nuthatches, robins, redheaded woodpeckers, all those darts of singing color. Above all was her love for her unique, lonely father.
In however limited and sporadic a manner, Gray Wolf did fill a void as the man in her life. The letters had been lovely, his presence was lovelier, and everything was okay, in short—except when she had to confront the man’s wife eyeball to eyeball, as it were. Also, Zev Barak seemed subtly different in the presence of his wife, a big good-looking somewhat graying man on the heavy side, this lady’s husband. Altogether Emily was not enjoying this plunge into the brute reality of her love affair, as she had known she would not. She yearned to skedaddle, and she had never liked couscous, anyhow. It was a tremendous relief when Zev looked at his watch and said to her father, “Well, time to go and pick up Sam.”
Nakhama asked as they left the table, “Mr. Cunningham, how does the CIA truly see our situation? What is Colonel Nasser up to? Will he make war on us?”
“There’s a war already on, Nakhama. The Arabs have never made peace, you know. If you ask will another big battle break out soon—” he glanced at Barak “—well, maybe we’re about to hear something about that.”
“And how will it all ever end?”
“Now that’s a very large question. For an answer, you must invite me again for couscous. Best I’ve ever eaten.” With as friendly a smile to a woman as Emily had ever seen on her father’s gaunt face, he shook hands with Nakhama, and he and Barak left.
Restraining an impulse to bolt, Emily said, “Let me help you with the dishes.”
“Oh, no, no, I have two big strong girls. They’re just doing homework.” Nakhama called and they came running in. Galia, with her wrist in a cast (so that had been the truth), was by far the prettier; the younger, Ruti, was a meager little creature with a sullen look. Galia said to Emily, “Your school really has horses?”
“Yes, we teach riding.”
The sullen Ruti broke out in smiles. “Oh, could we ride your horses? Could we? We know how, we ride at our uncle’s kibbutz—”
Nakhama rapped out a smiling rebuke in Hebrew, and the girls began clearing the table. “Will you stay and have tea? Or whiskey? We have Bell’s twelve-year-old Scotch.”
“Oh, no, no, thank you. I must go.”
“Must you? Zev knows you so much better than I do. Your letters have given him so much pleasure, for such a long time and—”
(I should have bolted!) “He’s an outstanding man, and your girls are sweet. I’m afraid I must be going. Thank you for a delicious dinner.”
“You’re welcome. Could I really bring my girls out to your school someday, so they could see the horses? They’d love that. Maybe we could talk a bit.”
“Someday, why not? Goodbye.”
“Goodbye. How about tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid we have graduation tomorrow.”
“Sunday?”
“Sorry. Not Sunday.”
“Maybe Monday, then?”
(These Israelis! It’s how they survive, no doubt.) “Well, yes, I guess so. I’ll have to check my calendar.”
“All right, I’ll telephone you tomorrow to make sure. Zev has the number?”
“Yes, he does.” (Let me out of here, dear God!)
Nakhama spoke in Hebrew to the girls, who were doing the dishes in the kitchen. They came romping out, “Oh, that’s wonderful! We love horses! You’re so kind! We can’t wait till Monday!”
“Yes, well, as I say, I’ll have to check my calendar. Now I must hurry….” Emily shook Nakhama’s hand and at last got the hell out of there.
***
As Barak edged his small Chevrolet into the heavy Connecticut Avenue traffic, he said, “Were you kidding my wife, Chris, or do you actually have an idea of how it will all end? If so, I’m listening.”
Cunningham grunted or chuckled, hard to say which. “I once wrote out my notions on that theme for Admiral Redman when he headed the CIA. My answer had nothing to do with intelligence. A short memo, perfectly serious. He returned it with an unserious comment, so I dropped it in my FORGET FOR NOW file. I review that file now and then. I find interesting things.”
“What was his comment?”
“Just a red-ink scribble, ‘Chris, you should live so long.’”
“I’d like to read that memo.”
“Barak, any idea of what Sam wants of me?”
“No, the cable read, ‘Imperative I meet our friend.’ That’s all. He’s coming from the Prime Minister, I can tell you that.”
“Able but unlucky man, your Levi Eshkol. Will he survive?”
“As Prime Minister? Certainly. The government can’t fall at such a time. He may have to give up the Minister of Defense portfolio, which will be a body blow to him.”
“Who’ll get it?”
“Dayan.”
Not till they were crossing the Memorial Bridge did Cunningham speak again. “Your wife is an engaging lady.”
“She’s a good listener.”
“My chatterbox daughter was mighty quiet. Cat got her tongue. I talked enough for both of us, I daresay.”
No response. Cat had Barak’s tongue, too.
Pasternak was one of the first passengers out of the plane gate. In a seersucker suit he looked very ordinary, a burly middle-aged businessman, possibly seeking contracts in Washington. He had no luggage but a despatch case. After an exchange of pleasantries they walked out of the terminal in silence.
“Well, Sam, what can I do for you?” Cunningham inquired, when they were away from the crowd and heading for the diplomatic parking lot.
“Can you arrange for me to meet with your Secretary of Defense?”
“That’s all? Nothing easier.”
Pasternak said, “I’m serious, Chris.”
“I’m serious, Sam.”
When Barak returned to the apartment Nakhama was in a nightgown combing out her heavy black hair, where a few silver wires now showed when he looked close. She said lightly, “What do you think? Your friend Emily has invited me to bring the girls out to her school to see the horses.”
“She has? That’s nice.” Barak’s mind was on heavier matters, but the high-strung Queenie must have been well over her anxiety about coming to dinner, if she could be so amiable to Nakhama and the girls. Good move, good sign.
“Yes. Monday. She has to check her calendar, so I’m to call her tomorrow. You have the number?”
“Sure.”
Accustomed to Zev’s reticence, Nakhama fell asleep without a word about Pasternak. He lay awake digesting Sam’s news: the country grinding to a panicky halt in the Hamtana, a new national unity government formed, Begin entering the cabinet, the clamor for Dayan still rising. If Chris Cunningham could get Pasternak to the Secretary of Defense, he had more clout than Barak knew. As to what Pasternak had to say to the Secretary, he could only guess.
***
“I’m told he’ll be in his office at ten o’clock,” Cunningham said next morning. “I’ll call him then. That’s simplest, just a straight phone call.”
Barak asked, “He’ll take your call?”
“Oh, he’ll talk to Chris,” sa
id Pasternak. They were drinking coffee on Cunningham’s terrace. The balmy morning air, the distant quietly flowing Potomac, the fragrance of the gardenias blooming in tubs, and of trees rained on during the night, created an illusory sense of peace, of everything right with the world. “What about the international flotilla?” Pasternak asked Cunningham. “Could you find out anything last night?”
“Not much to find out. It doesn’t exist.”
Pasternak glanced at Barak, who said, “You mean it can’t be formed in time.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean. It’s a phantom, a nothing. Forget it.”
Pasternak almost growled, “Are you saying it’s been a hoax?”
“Oh, come on!” Christian Cunningham got up and paced, cup and saucer in hand. “Remember how Eisenhower and Dulles stopped the Suez war?”
“Remember it?” said Pasternak. “It cost us the Sinai.”
“So do the British and French remember,” said Barak. “It destroyed their empires.”
“Well, do you know what happened when Selwyn Lloyd, the British Foreign Secretary, visited Dulles in the hospital not long afterward?”
They both shook their heads.
“It’s interesting. We have it well documented. Dulles said to Lloyd, ‘Selwyn, once you’d landed in Suez, why on earth didn’t you march to Cairo and get rid of the fellow once for all?’ Well, Lloyd was flabbergasted! He said, ‘Foster, why on earth didn’t you give us a signal, even a hint, that you and Eisenhower really were thinking that way?’ ‘Oh,’ says Dulles, ‘we couldn’t possibly do that.’… Sam, aren’t you chilly in that seersucker? It’s breezy out here.”
“I don’t mind. They told me it was sweltering in Washington.”
“Not by the river. Anyway, gentlemen, this flotilla thing is more or less a replay of our ‘international action’ proposal in the Suez crisis. That time Dulles called it ‘the consortium of canal users.’ The ‘maritime powers’ wouldn’t pay canal tolls, they’d hold the tolls in this ‘consortium,’ to pressure Nasser. It was vague. That was the idea, to be vague, to delay, to let things cool, to put off the use of force. It did delay the British and the French, fatally. Call the flotilla an update of the consortium. That’s about it.”