“She can’t know. She can’t have told you that. It’s all in your head.”
“Don’t infuriate me! You didn’t hear our conversation at the Piraeus, Zev, while you were on the telephone for an eternity. She knows. You’re the one who’s obtuse. I don’t think you understand your own wife, or for that matter me, or women in general. You’re too damned charming, and we’ve been too easy for you.”
“Was it a good letter you wrote?”
“Not very, but better than I’m doing now. Now listen, can’t we go on corresponding? How can Nakhama mind that? I mean, dear Gray Wolf, that’s always been the best part of it—Good God, look at the man wince!”
“I didn’t wince.”
“You did, too, as though I’d stabbed you with a hat pin. Male ego. God, how ridiculous. My love, I still have packing to do, so let me give you my itinerary. I’ll write, and you write ahead to wherever I’ll be. I’d love that.”
“This Colonel Halliday seems quite a guy.”
“Well, he’s hard to figure out.”
“I’ve urged you for years to get married, Queenie, you know that, and—”
“Zev Barak”—her voice choked—“get the hell out of here.”
“All right, Queenie.” He looked around at the familiar room. “I’ll miss the Growlery. Let me have that itinerary. And your letter.”
In the flower-scented darkness outside she said in a husky whisper as they kissed, “Have you ever seen so many goddamn fireflies?”
“We’ll go on writing, Emily. That’s for sure. At least that.”
“Perfect. On your way, Gray Wolf! I don’t want to weep. Tell Nakhama ‘Banzai’ from Emily Cunningham.”
***
The cardinals and jays woke Emily next morning, carrying on outside her window. She had had a bad wakeful spell of the dismals in the small dark hours. Zev Barak was gone, sent off with light words to mask her pain. Colonel Halliday had left them together in the Growlery for what he undoubtedly thought was a roaring night of gitchi-gitchi. Scratch the air force. Too tall for her, anyway. Too stony. Her father loved her, otherwise what matter if on this trip she caught some horrible tropical fever like poor Marilyn Halliday, and died in five days? And so on. Emily had cut short these 3 A.M. glooms with a hooker of bourbon. Her head was fuzzy as she lay blinking at the sunshine, listening to birdsong.
R-r-ring. Gray Wolf, for a word of farewell? A good sport, Zev, an utter darling. She cleared her throat to force a cheery, “Hello?”
“Bud Halliday here. I’m not calling too early?”
“What? No, no, not at all, Colonel.”
“Emily, I have a meeting in the Pentagon at noon. Then I fly back to Florida. How about breakfast at the Red Fox? Say nine o’clock? They do very good biscuits.”
“Biscuits? Why—well, who could say no to biscuits? You’re on, Bud.”
“Splendid. Incidentally, your Israeli friend impressed me.” Emily was speechless. Pause. “See you nine o’clock then, at the Red Fox.”
She hung up. Scratch the tropical fever.
46
The Jeradi Pass
“Speaking of Don Kishote, isn’t that him now?” Moshe Dayan squinted his good eye toward the door of Fink’s Bar, a dim-lit Jerusalem haunt of the insiders, its walls lined with signed pictures of noted army officers and journalists. “With Benny Luria and an American lady?”
“Moshe, that American lady is Yael,” growled Pasternak. He and Zev Barak sat with Dayan in a dark booth, at which all eyes in the crowded bar kept turning.
“Yael? Well, well!” Dayan beckoned to the threesome. “Very elegant, isn’t she?”
Yael seized Benny and Yossi by the elbow. “Look, it’s Dode Moshe himself, he wants us to join him. Unexpected honor!”
At a nod from Dayan, the bartender hurried to bring more chairs. “Sit down, sit down. What brings you three to Unified Jerusalem?” His manner and his crooked smile, Barak thought, as he spoke with relish the new journalistic term, verged on the imperial. The old Yiddish byword fitted Dayan: He has a new skin.
“It’s Yael’s birthday,” said Luria. “We’re celebrating. Where else? Fink’s Bar.”
Dayan patted her hand. “Yael, live to a hundred twenty!”
“Thank you, Minister.”
“I hear you’re becoming a Los Angeles millionaire, and you run around with all the film stars.”
She laughed. “That’s nonsense. I’ve come home to stay, Uncle Moshe.” She touched the bandaged patch on Kishote’s temple. “So as to take care of my crazy husband and my boy.”
Dayan abruptly dropped his joshing tone. “Kishote, we were just talking about that piece in today’s Jerusalem Post. It’s stupid, ignore it! Your advance to El Arish was brilliant.”
“Well, you’re generous, Minister. I took heavy losses, and got trapped when the Jeradi Pass closed up. All that’s true enough. And then Gorodish’s breakthrough to me was very bloody.”
“All beside the point.” Moshe Dayan’s head shake forbade contradiction. “When the Egyptians in Sinai heard our armor had reached El Arish that first afternoon, they were shattered. That shock started their entire line crumbling.” He turned to Barak, and caught him in a yawn. Dayan frowned. “Zev, was the fall of El Arish played up in America?”
Barak dug a knuckle into his eyes. “The air strike was the big story, Minister, once it got out.”
Benny Luria showed white teeth in a proud smile. “Yes, we managed to keep it quiet at first. Part of the deception.”
Dayan waved a finger, and the bartender sprang to take drink orders. “My attack on Lod and Ramle in 1948 was like your dash, Kishote. Improvised. Costly. Ben Gurion even called it a prank. But it came on the first day the truce ended, and the enemy’s morale was broken by that quick jolt. It spread panic and confusion, and they never recovered. Your feat was outstanding…. Zev, maybe you should go to bed.” Barak was yawning again.
“Sorry, Minister. I’m fine. Long plane trip, long meetings,” said Barak.
“I promised to take Zev to the Wall,” said Pasternak. “That’s why I’m keeping my driver up.”
“The Wall? Count me in,” said Luria. “I haven’t been there yet.”
“Me, either,” said Yael.
Pasternak shot her a cold look. “No American beauties. Strict curfew and blackout in the Old City, and tough patrols.”
“I’ll take you there, Yael,” said Dayan, sizing her up with amused appetite, “maybe tomorrow.” The square neck of her linen suit stood away from her bosom, showing cleft and a flash of pink lace.
“That would be lovely, Uncle Moshe.” Yael’s pert tone was just short of impudence; a handsome woman aware of her allure and unafraid of power.
This is a strange business in which I hardly fit, thought Barak through a haze of weariness. Yet very Israeli! Elbow to elbow, Yael’s husband and Yael’s old lover; at Pasternak’s other elbow, Yael’s brother Benny, still detesting Sam for that early liaison; and Moshe Dayan lording it over them all. Everybody in Fink’s Bar was covertly glancing at this table of stars: the Defense Minister, the controversial Don Kishote, the rumored Mossad head, the air strike commander, and a glossy American lady. Also himself, a vague obscure general, a military attaché or something.
Dayan’s round black-patched face took on a business look. “Were you in America, Yael, when Abba Eban spoke in the Security Council?”
“No, I got on the first plane I could when the war started. My friends in California telephoned me about it, though. He was tremendous. Big headlines.”
Barak knew this was not what Dayan wanted to hear. Eban was being sent to New York again, this time to address the General Assembly. Kosygin was coming there to head the Soviet delegation, and Dayan wanted to accompany Eban as Kosygin’s opposite number. But the Foreign Minister was balking at that, as Barak could well understand. Even if Eban did speak, and however well he spoke, the famed general with the eye patch would utterly eclipse him. All eyes in the assembly hall, and all th
e TV cameras, would be on Moshe Dayan.
“Well, I heard good things about his speech, too, and I read it. Highly rhetorical. Of course his delivery makes a difference,” said Dayan. “Still, I wonder how a Cambridge don, which is what he sounds like, can stand up to Chairman Kosygin.”
“Maybe that’s good,” said Yael. “Keeps up the underdog image, which isn’t easy, Uncle Moshe, after your terrific victory.”
Barak and Pasternak exchanged a quick glance, mere eye flickers. This same simple argument, among others, had been pressed at the inner cabinet meeting. Eshkol had been silent, and the decision was still open.
“A good point, Yael.” Dayan shrugged. “We’ll see. Anyway, the General Assembly has no power, it’s a debating society, so maybe a good debater is all that’s wanted.”
Yael retorted, characteristically pushing her luck, “Well, all the same, a General Assembly resolution created Israel.”
“That’s a silly thing to say, and don’t ever say it again!” Dayan’s tone turned freezing. “We created Israel.”
She took the rebuke with an affected little smile at the others, but she was shaken. Sam Pasternak resented the way Dayan snubbed Yael—he was a giant, she was a woman—and wondered why her husband, sitting pale and mute, didn’t come to her defense. Yossi Nitzan was not himself; the wound, perhaps, or else the newspaper attack. It was Zev Barak who spoke up. “Minister, an assembly resolution that goes against us by two-thirds will be a very bad turn of events.” Dayan made a dismissive hand wave. “With your permission, sir, I’ll go with Sam now to the Wall, while I can keep my eyes open.”
“By all means, Zev,” said Dayan, turning much pleasanter. “And listen, what you’ve been doing over in Washington has been outstanding. You’re worth two brigades in the field.”
“You exaggerate, Minister, but thank you.”
Pasternak, Luria, and Barak stood up. “Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Yossi,” Yael exclaimed. “I can see you’re dying to go with them. I’ll make my own way back to Tel Aviv.”
“No problem,” said Dayan, “I’ll take you.”
The four officers left. “Have a glass of wine with me, Yael, and we’ll go,” Dayan said. They had both been drinking Tempo.
“Thanks, I’d love it,” she said with a relieved saucy grin.
“So. You’re really giving up golden Los Angeles? Why?”
“Because you’ve won the Jews a great secure homeland at last, Uncle Moshe, and I want to live in it.”
That struck the right note between them. His smile was both fatherly and admiring. He ordered the wine. “At any rate, Yael, California has agreed with you. I can remember you running around the moshav, a dirty-faced little girl. You’re a beautiful lady.”
“You’re too kind. I missed home every single day I was there. And in the end my son couldn’t stand it.”
She answered his questions about her dress business, which she intended to put up for sale, until the wine came. “Well,” she said, fingering her glass, “no point toasting you, Uncle Moshe. You’re the toast of the world.”
Dayan raised his glass. “Here’s to your Don Kishote. Take care of him, Yael. He has a future.”
***
Soldiers on leave filled the crooked narrow street outside Fink’s Bar, walking with girls or with each other, a young crowd making a lot of merry noise. Barak knew what it was to be merry after a war, with the death of friends eating at the heart. He loved these green-clad youngsters, felt their sadness for the fallen, shared their joy at being alive with the fighting over—for now. This time he had missed it all. Zeh mah she’yaish!
“Where’s your driver?” he asked Pasternak.
“Outside Goldenberg’s.”
Benny said to Kishote, “Quite a commendation you got from Dayan.”
“He was too rough with Yael,” Pasternak said.
“Ha! Yael can take care of herself,” said Kishote, “with Moshe Dayan or with anybody.”
“She was being too smart with him,” said Luria. “That’s my sister for you.”
“Why too smart? She’s right,” snapped Pasternak. The four senior officers were walking along, unheeded by the jocund soldiers. “Dayan at the General Assembly would be Samson among the Philistines. They’d itch to kill him with votes.”
“And Eban?” inquired Luria.
Kishote said, “The lamb that chased the wolves.”
The aviator laughed. “Not bad.”
“He’s a masterly speaker,” said Barak. “Eshkol will send him without Dayan. That’s my guess.”
Pasternak said, “Mine too. There’s my car. Strange, Goldenberg’s is still lit up.”
“People are celebrating,” said Luria, “even the kosher ones.”
Late diners were coming out and Don Kishote saw Shayna among them; unmistakably Shayna, though dressed very brightly in lacy blue satin, her hair piled up on her head beauty-parlor style. Without thinking he darted toward her and grasped her hand. “Shayna!” The Canadian emerged behind her with a gray-headed man and a very stout woman. Both men wore big fedora hats.
Shayna’s mouth fell open. “By your life, Yossi! Don’t spring at me like that, like a leopard or something!” She peered at him, her eyes round and troubled. “Are you all right? Are you healing up well? Yossi, you’re so pale.”
“Hello, there, Colonel,” said the Canadian. “Mama, Papa, here’s one of the great war heroes, Don Kishote. I showed you the newspaper piece about him. Colonel Nitzan, meet my parents from Toronto, Mr. and Mrs. Rubinstein.”
The old people smiled and stared. The father held out his hand and said with a Yiddish accent, “Arthur Rubinstein, but I don’t play piano.” He chuckled at his own standard jest. “Well, the celebrated Don Kishote! I didn’t expect to meet you, sir.”
A few yards away, the officers were getting into Pasternak’s car. Luria called, “Kishote! Zuz! [Move!]”
“Shayna, we’ll be at the taxi stand,” said the Canadian. He took each of his parents by an arm and walked off.
“What is this?” Yossi asked.
“What is what? Good night, Yossi.” She did not move.
“Are you engaged? Are you getting married? What?”
“They came here to meet me and my mother.”
“It’s serious, then.”
“Not your concern. I’m going to Canada next month.”
“Shayna, for good?”
“For a visit. Think I’d leave Israel? How is Aryeh?”
“Great. He misses Aunt Shayna.”
“Where’s Yael?”
“In Fink’s Bar with Moshe Dayan.”
“I almost believe you.”
“That’s where she is, hamoodah.” Pasternak was leaning out of the car window and gesturing at him. “She grew up on his moshav, you know.”
“And she’s really come back to stay?”
“So she says.”
“Be happy, Kishote.” She hesitated, lunged to kiss his mouth, and scampered off into the crowd and down the hill.
“Sha’ar Mandelbaum, Shimon,” Pasternak said, when Kishote got into the car. The Mandelbaum Gate was the heavily barricaded checkpoint where, for nineteen years, diplomats and special visitors had been passing between Israel and Jordan-ruled Palestine.
“B’seder, Sha’ar Mandelbaum,” said the young driver with a knowing grin at him.
“Zev, by my life, isn’t this a joy, Jerusalem all lit up again? The blackout was something!” said Pasternak. “Shells bursting all over the sky. Searchlights, fires, tracers. We were back in 1948. Six days though, instead of seven months, and no water trucks.”
“And a different outcome,” said Luria.
“When my plane came in tonight,” said Barak, “the sun was just setting, and already Tel Aviv was ablaze like a Luna Park.”
“‘Truly the light is sweet.’” Pasternak quoted Scripture. “After a blackout, you know it.”
Winding through familiar brightly lit streets, the car all at once plunged into darkness pierced
only by its headlights. Pasternak said over his shoulder, “Here we go. Unified Jerusalem.”
Barak strained his eyes into the gloom. “But where’s the Mandelbaum Gate?”
“What Mandelbaum Gate?”
“It’s gone?”
“Not a trace. Jerusalem is one city. Gone.”
“And the blockhouses, the pillboxes, the barricades?”
“Gone! Gone or going, all across Jerusalem.” Pasternak handed pistols to them. “Take these. Just a precaution.”
The driver weaved expertly through shuttered empty dark streets until the headlights struck the Old City walls. He braked. “Which way, sir?” he asked Pasternak. “Sha’ar Jaffa? Sha’ar Zion?”
“Sha’ar Jaffa.”
Passing through the high ancient archway of the Jaffa Gate, which since 1948 had been all walled up and visible only across the gulf of no-man’s-land, Zev Barak at last felt to his bones the sense of a won war.
***
Just inside the arch a blinding glare through the windshield and a harsh loudspeaker “Halt!” greets the car. A helmeted soldier with an Uzi walks into the blue glare. “Credentials,” he says to the driver.
“These are senior officers, two generals and—”
“Credentials!” Rougher tone.
Pasternak leans across the driver and passes the soldier an identification card, saying, “We’re going to the Wall.”
The soldier straightens and salutes. “Let me talk to my platoon commander, sir.”
Soon a bearded lieutenant appears in the glare and gives back the card with a salute. “We’ll escort you, General.”
“Why? We’re armed.”
“Strict curfew on, sir.”
“Very well.”
A jeep mounting a machine gun and a searchlight leads their car through stone alleys and low arches. The searchlight beam catches a line of bulldozers blocking the descent to the Western Wall. The lieutenant returns and leans on the window. “It’ll have to be on foot from here, sir.”
“No problem.”
A corporal walks ahead of them, Uzi in his right hand, flashlight in his left, through narrow black streets between old Arab houses. The Old City is eerily silent. For a long time they do not speak, each of the four men sunk in his own thoughts.