“We’ve built a land, we had to have it, and it’s ours. You know all that,” said Pasternak, his spirit sinking as he thought of Eshkol in the dim-lit studio.
“Oh, by your life don’t talk Zionism to me. I’m Yael! Benny is doing great things there. So is Kishote. Maybe one day Aryeh will too, I don’t know. I’m not saying we don’t need a Jewish State. I say it’ll survive without me.”
“What actually do you do, Yael? What’s your business in New York tomorrow?”
She accepted the drop to a quieter topic. “Oh, in a word, Israeli women’s fashions. They’re coming up, especially in leather.” She looked in the mirror inside the large flap of her purse. “Horrible bags under my eyes. No sleep.”
“To all the devils, you’re so beautiful, Yael.”
With a flash of her eyes in lieu of thanks, she said, “Well, this has been nice. Did you have anything special in mind, Sam, calling me from Tel Aviv at two in the morning?”
“More or less. If you and Yossi are really through, I would be interested to marry you.”
It caught her by surprise. So did her own turbulent reaction. She looked long at him, and her voice softened. “Ten years too late, motek, but it’s charming of you. You’re a great Israeli, and any woman would be proud, I guess, to be asked.”
“I miss you.”
“You know what, Sam? I hope there’s no war, I’m rotten scared, I don’t sleep thinking about Benny and Kishote. And Aryeh!” Her eyes unexpectedly stung and her voice weakened. “But if we get through this mess, and you finish up whatever job you’ve got now, why don’t you come here? Like Sheva Leavis, you could do really big things.”
“Yael, you know the story of the fox and the fish.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. It’s from the Talmud but it was in our kibbutz primers. The fox invites the fish out on dry land, where it’s so nice and sunny and all kinds of good things grow. The fish says no thanks, I have enough trouble surviving in my own element.”
She reluctantly laughed. “Hamood, I’m glad you telephoned. Is Ruth still in England?”
“Well, yes. She comes to see the kids, and they visit her in London. They detest the guy, think he’s an anti-Semite.”
“Maybe that’s what she wanted.”
He paid the check, and they walked into the lobby. “I’ll come up and help you with your luggage.”
“Lo, b’aleph! [Flat no!] It’s just a hatbox. Do me a favor. Find out how Aryeh is and call me. Yossi called twice, and I was out both times. Now he’s down south with Tal’s tanks. If you see Benny say I love him, and wish him victory. Here’s my elevator.”
He held her back. “Yael, surely you were fooling. There’s no such thing as a sexy dentist.”
“Oh, no? I’d say there’s a failure in Israeli intelligence.”
He burst out laughing. “What, then, is novocaine an aphrodisiac? Are they on to something?”
“Goodbye, motek.” She kissed him again. “None of your business, but about Yossi and me, well, there are problems.” She dove into the closing elevator.
***
The security guard behind the embassy’s bulletproof entrance window spoke on a microphone. “General, your staff people are waiting in the conference room.”
“Very good.”
Pasternak’s meeting with the staff was brief and encouraging. The main topic was the Arab intercepts, which so far showed no real awareness of a radical change in the Washington picture. He went into Barak’s office, saying, “Ready to run for the shuttle, Zev.” C-R-R-RACK! Outside the window, jagged lightning split the sky, the blue-and-white flag wildly flapped, and thunder rolled and rumbled. “Mah pitom?” he exclaimed. “The sun was shining when I got back here.”
“Washington weather,” said Barak. “Changeable.”
They drove to the airport through lashing rain. In the short walk from the diplomats’ parking lot to the shuttle, Barak was drenched. The waiting room was crowded with impatient passengers, and rank with a smell of wet clothes. Beyond the blurred picture window the plane was barely visible. “You’re drowned,” said Pasternak, off in a corner having coffee and a doughnut.
“You said you wanted to talk more.”
“Yes. Have a doughnut. To me, America is coffee and doughnuts in an airport.”
“Worm’s-eye view.” Barak put coins in the dispensers. “What will you report to the cabinet about those Arab intercepts, Sam? It’s as though Rusk said nothing that mattered.”
“Well, the Arabs have never taken the flotilla seriously. Smarter than our own cabinet.”
“Nasser made ugly noises about it.”
“Just jawing for the press.” Pasternak finished his doughnut and bought another. “By the time I land, mark me, Dayan will have the Defense portfolio.”
“Well, he’s a great fighter.”
“No doubt. Still, a guy who laughs when the bullets are flying around his head may not be the right civilian to head the Ministry of Defense. Death is nothing to laugh at.”
Barak said with a wry smile, “The Eshkol man talking.”
“Loading now for first section,” grated the loudspeaker. Passengers went surging toward the gate.
Pasternak glanced at the streaming window and picked up his despatch case. “Hm. Brave pilot. Look, the Sinai campaign was a masterpiece, but didn’t B.G. have to hold Moshe back for a year before the political chance came along? Moshe needs a boss. He’s trampling Eshkol down.”
“Well, Sam, Dayan really can’t do much about what happens next. The war plans are set. If war comes, Rabin will run it, and it’ll come the way this storm did.”
They were moving toward the rear of the crowd. “Tell me,” said Pasternak in an offhand way, “what does Chris Cunningham think about you and his daughter?” Barak made no reply. Pasternak looked at him with drooping eyes. “Does he know?”
“Know what?”
“Zev, we have no more important friend here than Cunningham.”
“I know that. And Chris knows that Em and I are old friends. We’ve corresponded for years. At his request, in fact, when she was a silly kid in Paris, involved with a goofy French poet, I helped pull her out of it. His wife was alive then. They both couldn’t thank me enough. That was the start.”
“Not quite. She was there when I first brought you to McLean in ’48, just a little string bean.”
“True enough.”
“The thing is, Zev, there’s also your own army future to think about.”
The eyes of the two men met. Nothing more had to be said. Zev Barak’s shrug said all: What will be, will be. The words he spoke aloud were, “Ah, Sam, I wish I were getting on this plane with you.”
Pasternak gripped his shoulder. “You’re in exactly the right job. Love to Nakhama.” The swirl of passengers pulled him away. “Yih’yeh b’seder,” he called with a farewell wave.
***
He got back to Israel in a windy humid gray afternoon and found the cabinet sitting in its emergency identity as the Full Ministerial Defense Committee to reconsider the question of going to war. He made his report sparely, since the cabled substance was already known to them, and in fact had helped to trigger this fateful debate.
Pallid and grim, Eshkol slumped at the head of the table, flanked by his two bitterest foes, Menachem Begin and Moshe Dayan. In the few days since Sam had seen him he seemed to have aged much. National unity, indeed! This bizarre reshuffling of old enemies made Pasternak think of Hussein kissing Nasser for the cameras. When he finished speaking Eshkol roused up to say, “Sam, asita hayil [a valorous job].”
“Thank you, Prime Minister.”
Moshe Dayan shot sharp questions at him. Like the other cabinet ministers Dayan wore an open-neck white shirt, but his old air of authority and the combative gleam in his good eye showed well that this was no civilian, but the great general back in command. All the others were deferring to him except Eshkol, sunk in silence and gloom. “Let’s meet tonight, Sam, at eleven,” Da
yan said at last. “I’ll want a full update on the latest intelligence from Cairo.”
“Yes, Minister.” Pasternak brought out the title with an effort. Moshe was Moshe.
Dayan acknowledged the effort with a lopsided grin, and added, “You must be tired. Get a little rest meantime.”
In the falling twilight outside, Pasternak encountered the Chief of Staff walking head down, smoking a cigarette. “Yitzhak, ma nishma?”
“Oh, you’re back.” General Rabin looked glad to see him. “Been reporting to the cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“I did before you. Your cable was tremendous. Turned the situation around.”
“I’d say Moshe’s appointment did that.”
Rabin grunted. “Well, he thinks so. Where are you going?”
“Now? Just walking.”
“So walk.” Rabin fell in beside him, chain-lighting a cigarette. “Moshe called a meeting of the top generals last night. He came in late, and you know what the first thing he said was? He said, ‘Do you have a plan?’”
“That’s Moshe. Has your plan changed much? SPADE, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes, it’s the same basic plan, modified as intelligence comes in. We’ve had SPADE, RAKE, PLOW, HOE, and we’re running out of farm tools.” A grunting laugh. “It still comes down to MOKADE and RED SHEET, as you know.” Rabin stopped walking and looked sidewise at Pasternak, head bent. “The air strike worries me. Very complex, extreme risks.”
“Have you talked to Motti Hod? Or to the pilots?”
“Motti runs his own show. No, I haven’t.”
“Listen, Yitzhak, come with me to Tel Nof. I’ll notify Motti you’re coming there.”
“What for?”
“Just do it, Yitzhak. And if there’s time, we’ll visit Tal’s RED SHEET HQ.”
Rabin glanced at his watch. “All right.”
***
The road was crowded with army vehicles roaring both ways, the blue headlights giving no illumination in the deepening twilight. “Strange cabinet meeting,” said Rabin. “They’re acting as though Dayan has the war decision to make. He doesn’t, you realize. I do. The Minister of Defense gives the political directive to attack—when and only when I report military readiness to attack. Anyway, that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Moshe’s never been much on protocol. He doesn’t change.”
Rabin paused while Pasternak riskily passed a long slow transporter groaning along under two Centurion tanks. “Sam, between you and me,” he resumed, “I asked Moshe if he wanted my job. He can have anything now, I realize that. I put it to him point-blank. He said absolutely no, I should remain Ramatkhal. So, he’s Minister of Defense.”
“Listen, Yitzhak, he’s united the people. He’s electrified them. I felt it when I arrived. Why, when I left, the airport was like a cemetery. Today even the customs inspectors and the porters were smiling. He’s an inspiration. Like Churchill when France was falling.”
“That’s a very good comparison,” Rabin said. “I hadn’t thought of it. Churchill couldn’t really do anything that wasn’t already laid on. Could he? The RAF planes and pilots were ready. The radar and fighter control systems were all in place. He did nothing to win the Battle of Britain but roar like a lion and inspire the people. ‘Blood, sweat, and tears,’ and all that.”
“Mr. Charisma,” said Pasternak.
“Call it that. Crucial, too. Still, the responsibility remains mine. Remember the tongue-lashing B.G. gave me? If you don’t, I do.”
“I’ll never forget it.”
The air force chief was waiting for them at the gate to the Tel Nof base. He jumped into the car, saying without ado, “Yitzhak, I’ll take you to some pilots who’ll be hitting the fields in Egypt on the first wave.”
“In Egypt?” Rabin said querulously. “What about the heavy bombers in Sinai? They’re the main threat.”
“Just so,” said Motti Hod, sounding pleased. “Mighty nice of Nasser to put his bombers there! Cuts our time to target. We’ll get them. Later I’ll go through the op order with you.”
The pilots were assembled in their hangar, awaiting the Ramatkhal. As they answered his dry probing queries—their color fresh, their readiness to fight glittering in their eyes, their grasp of mission total and eager—Pasternak could see him cheering up. Rabin also walked around the Mirages, chatting with the ground crews, who spoke to him with an engaging mixture of awe and impudence. These air force lads were the other side of the Israeli coin from the shleppers, thought Pasternak, and they could save both Israel and the shleppers.
Later, as Motti Hod was reviewing the MOKADE op order for Rabin in a map room, the Ramatkhal broke in. “In broad daylight, Motti? A quarter to eight in the morning! Where’s your tactical surprise? What about the antiaircraft?”
“Good question. Decision based on intelligence.” Hod turned to Pasternak. “Want to answer?”
“Sure. We know the Egyptian fighter pilots’ routine, Yitzhak. They return from dawn patrol when the sun’s well up. Highest alert ends at seven, then they land and eat breakfast. At seven forty-five they’re having coffee, or going to their offices or homes, or to be plain about it, taking a shit. That’s optimum time to strike.”
“Also, Yitzhak, their airfields tend to have early ground fog,” said Hod, “and by seven forty-five the sun has burned it off. As to tactical surprise, the boys will fly as close to the ground or the sea as they can, under the Egyptian radar patterns. Total radio silence. Even if a guy develops engine trouble, even if he goes down or ejects, silence.”
The Ramatkhal nodded, and did not interrupt again until the air chief finished. He puffed slowly at his cigarette in silence, then he said, “Now Motti, did I understand you right? You’ll leave twelve aircraft to protect the entire airspace of Israel? Twelve?”
“For the first three hours, yes.”
“And what about ‘clear skies over Israel’?”
“En brera, Yitzhak. The Arabs outnumber us in the air two and a half to one. I intend to hit them with everything I’ve got, even the trainers.”
“Extreme risk. Extreme.”
“Yes.” A silence. Motti Hod said, “Are we in extremis, Ramatkhal?”
Rabin pondered, sighed, ground out his cigarette and stood up. “Approved.”
***
The helicopter pilot shouted to Rabin over his shoulder, pointing out the window, “There it is, sir. The Seventh Armored Brigade.”
The machine tilted, the motor racket increased. Stars and a quarter-moon rotated past the window. Looking down and straining his eyes, the Ramatkhal said, “I don’t see anything. Desert.”
“Good camouflage,” said Pasternak.
On the ground, at a long table under netting held up by poles, senior officers were finishing a map session with General Tal by the green light of a field lamp. “I hear the helicopter,” Tal said, and he went outside to scan the star-strewn black sky. The machine settled to earth, the Ramatkhal and Pasternak emerged from the clouds of dust and exhaust, and Tal saluted. “Senior commanders group ready for you, sir.”
The officers listened soberly to Rabin’s arid summary of the strategic picture. “General Pasternak and I came to see you,” he concluded, “because the Seventh Brigade is the spearhead. Ready to go?”
The officers looked at one another, and Don Kishote spoke up. “We’ve been ready for two weeks, sir. Is the government ready yet?”
“That’s an impertinence, Nitzan,” barked Tal.
“Sorry,” said Kishote, not sounding too sorry. “It’s what my tank crews are saying.”
“Let him talk, Tallik,” said the Ramatkhal. “Go ahead, Nitzan, speak your mind.”
“Sir, we’ve always known we’d face odds of two to one in tanks, worse in artillery, and Russian tanks stronger than ours. But now the enemy’s had two extra weeks to harden up the Sinai, plant minefields, dig tank ditches, build fortifications. So our task is that much tougher. Why didn’t we roll at least a week a
go?”
A voice from the gloom: “We’ve missed the boat.” All along the table heads nodded.
Rabin lit a cigarette with slow gestures. “I’ll let General Pasternak speak to that question.”
Thanks, Yitzhak, for the hot potato, Pasternak thought.
These officers, he was well aware, faced a long slog into as vast a mass of enemy tanks as had fought in any World War II battle. They were sitting beside friends who would not live. They would take their soldiers into a meat grinder of fortifications and antitank batteries through which—in defeat or victory—they could not pass without heavy losses and horrible injuries. To such men, Yael’s husband among them, he had to explain the Hamtana!
He tried. The army had captured the Sinai in the Suez war, he began, but the superpowers had forced Israel to pull out. The victory had proved empty. With this Hamtana, by forbearing to strike at once, Israel had brought the Americans around to a friendly stance. This time, therefore, the army might not have to evacuate territory it won, without a real peace. In the back of Pasternak’s mind was the unmentionable Eisenhower message to Johnson.
“Are you saying, sir,” inquired Yossi, raising his hand again—shutting from mind that he was addressing his wife’s longtime lover—“that we pay the cost in blood and bones of smashing them once more, in order to give up the Sinai for a treaty, a piece of paper?”
“A piece of paper,” put in General Tal severely, “countersigned by America, Nitzan, is pretty good paper.”
Returning to the helicopter, Rabin detoured through the arrays of camouflaged tanks stretching out of sight into the darkness. Crews huddling under the stars murmured, as waiting soldiers do, about girls, food, future plans, sports, officers’ shortcomings, and the like. Such visits were an old Dayan custom, but for the remote Rabin it was a novelty, and the soldiers clearly were excited and gladdened. Over the clamor of the helicopter’s motor as it struggled into the air Rabin shouted in Pasternak’s ear, “Let Moshe give his directive. I’m ready.”