And now there Yael was again, up in first class, pregnant with Don Kishote’s second child …
“Thank you. Was he good?” asked the woman, squeezing past her husband into her seat, and taking back the baby. She felt its bottom. “Ah, nice and dry.”
“He’s sweet. I envy you.”
“We have five more in Passaic,” said the woman. “This one was too young to leave behind. The oldest girl takes care of the rest. She’s eleven.”
“You could have left him home, too,” said the husband, not looking up from the book. “Malka’s a better mother than you are.”
“Maybe, but she doesn’t give milk.”
“When she does she’ll give gallons,” said the husband, turning the page.
“Malka’s his favorite,” the woman amiably said to Shayna. “She knows the Book of Psalms by heart.”
“So do I,” said Shayna.
The husband squinted at her. “You do? Recite Psalm 94.”
Shayna recited it.
“You can’t be an American.”
“Did I say I was?”
Running through Psalms was one way to get to sleep. “Happy is the man who walketh not in the way of the sinners,” she began, and recited psalm after psalm to herself, her lips barely moving. She seldom got far, even on a bad night, without drifting into slumber. But the plane bounced, the baby whimpered, and she reached the last line of Psalm 150, “All that have breath praise the Lord, Hallelujah,” wide awake and not much comforted. Yael Luria would go on travelling first class through life, she was thinking, and for Shayna Matisdorf in tourist class nothing would ever go right. The Book of Job was the last word, there was no justice in God’s world, not as the human mind understood justice. The wicked flourished like the green bay tree. “Happy is the man who walketh not in the way of the sinners” … Ha!
On this firm foundation of unyielding despair, Shayna at last dozed off.
Behind the thick glass barrier walling off the baggage area Don Kishote stood amid a throng of waving, shouting relatives and friends, looking for his wife. She had surely flown first class, so why wasn’t she heading that stream of arriving passengers? Mulish woman, flying abroad in her eighth month on some stupid film business, in which she had even managed to involve him …
“Abba, there’s Aunt Shayna! Look, it’s her!” Aryeh clutched at his father’s uniform with one hand, pointing. “And there’s Imma now, next to that little man in gray.” Indeed, here came Yael with Sheva Leavis. All men were briefly equal in Lod airport, so the multimillionaire was pushing a baggage cart. Yael was waddling rather than walking, otherwise she seemed all right. But Shayna! What was Shayna doing, coming to Israel alone? His old love looked preoccupied and worn, yet there she certainly was, and after retrieving one suitcase, she was already on her way out, while Leavis and Yael still were looking for their luggage.
“Let’s go, Aryeh, we’ll try to say hello to Aunt Shayna.” At twelve the boy was too dignified to dance and caper, but he pulled his father by the hand in his eagerness to get to the terminal exit. Coming outside, they saw Shayna get into a car, a dusty blue Porsche. Aryeh groaned as it drove off.
“Haval [Too bad],” said Kishote. “Well, I promise that you’ll see her while she’s here.”
Leavis and Yael soon appeared, followed by a laden porter. Aryeh ran to his mother and embraced her. “Hi, there,” she said to Kishote, as he sauntered up and gave her a kiss. “This boy seems to grow by the week.”
“So do you. Are you okay?”
“Perfect, thanks.”
Peering here and there, Leavis said, “Mr. Greengrass is supposed to meet us with a car and driver.”
“Greengrass telephoned me last night,” Yossi said to Yael. “That’s how I knew what flight you were coming on.”
“What did he want of you?” Leavis asked.
“Well, with Golda becoming Prime Minister that whole film deal of yours seems to have gone on hold. He wanted to be sure that my tank units are still available.”
Yossi’s brother Lee had persuaded Leavis to invest in a movie about the Six-Day War, and Yossi was to assist in the tank battle scenes, if the project came off.
“Are they?” inquired Leavis.
“Depends. I may be getting reassigned myself.”
“I hope this thing isn’t unravelling,” Yael said to Leavis.
“So? It wouldn’t be my first deal to do that.”
A black Mercedes pulled up at the curb. “Mr. Leavis? Mrs. Nitzan? Mr. Greengrass apologizes, and sends this message.” The driver handed an envelope to Leavis, who scanned its contents and shrugged.
“Now what?” asked Yael.
“He’s seeing your friend Pasternak, that’s why he hasn’t come to meet us. The car’s at our disposal.”
Kishote said dryly to Leavis, “Well, if anyone can help you with government commitments, Sam Pasternak can.”
“I’ll take Aryeh with me to the flat,” Yael said, seizing the boy’s hand.
“By all means,” said Kishote. “I have to go back up north.”
“Goodbye, then. Come along, Aryeh.”
The boy said, following her into the Mercedes, “Remember, Abba, you promised you’d take me to see Aunt Shayna.”
His parents exchanged a hard look as the driver closed the car door.
Many packing boxes were open in the disordered living room of the Prime Minister’s residence. The pervasive smell of cigarette smoke identified the new occupant, and by heading where it was strongest Sam Pasternak tracked her to the kitchen. A pink apron over her cardigan and skirt, she was throwing chunks of meat and chopped vegetables into a black iron pot, with the gray-haired old cook of the residence and a Yemenite serving girl looking on. “I’ll be right with you, Sam. I’m having eight for dinner, all family, for the first time. They like my soup, it’ll make them feel a little more at home here.” She shook in various condiments, gave orders to the grouchily obsequious cook, and took off the apron. “So, what did you find out about those crazy navy items in the defense budget? Let’s go to the office.”
In the book-lined room where a large regional map on one wall was flanked by portraits of Herzl and Ben Gurion, Golda sat down at the bare oversize desk, gesturing around. “Luxury, hah? I have to put up a picture of poor Eshkol. Go on, Sam.”
A hush-hush missile program, he was saying, had compelled the navy for years to mask its cost with vague padding. Various budget directors had winked at the puzzling bulge, but not Moshe Dayan. On becoming Minister of Defense he had probed and found out that the army’s General Staff had little faith in the sea force’s missile project. A test of the weapon next month might decide whether the program would go forward or be scrapped for good.
Wrinkling her large nose at all this, Golda said, “I want you to be present at that test. If it fails, there will be a thousand excuses in a report I won’t be able to wade through. You’re to tell me in two words, It worked, or It failed. Understood? If it fails, that program’s finished. Enough already. I’m shocked at how short of defense funding we are. For us the navy is very low priority.”
“Permit me to disagree, Madame Prime Minister.”
She fixed him with a cold eye. “Go right ahead.”
“Assuming the missile works, those boats can change the entire equation in the Mediterranean.”
As he described the design of the vessel, dwelling on its punch and its speed, she showed a trace of interest. “What are we talking about here, Sam, a pocket battleship or something? The Germans had those in the last war, pocket battleships. How can we afford them, or man them?”
Undeterred by her total ignorance — real or assumed, for Golda sometimes asked very dense questions on purpose — he explained that these were just patrol craft, beefed up to the ultimate. “For those Russian naval units based in Alexandria right now, Madame Prime Minister, the existence of a fleet of such Israeli seagoing scorpions will matter a lot, I assure you.”
“I see. And what do you call
a fleet?”
“Twelve vessels already built. However, there’s a problem.” He told her about the five boats interned in Cherbourg.
“Our good friend De Gaulle again,” she said, shaking her head as she chain-lit a cigarette. “Holding back the Mirages we paid for isn’t enough?”
“Well, he’s not popular anymore, and he may fall in the forthcoming election. If he doesn’t” — Pasternak paused, drooped his eyes almost shut, and shrugged — “maybe something else will happen with those boats.”
“Sam!” She lifted an admonishing finger at him, her tone ironic. “Don’t get us into any more trouble with the French than we are.”
“God forbid, Madame Prime Minister.”
With a knowing look, Golda flipped a hand at a sheaf of scrawls on the desk. “My first Knesset speech as Prime Minister. Do I take note of Mr. Nasser’s War of Attrition or not? What’s doing on the Canal? Anything new?”
“Not really. For a few days they stepped up the bombardment of the Bar-Lev Line, but that’s been the pattern since the war ended. Sporadic violations of the cease-fire until we trade them blow for blow, with an extra measure that quiets them down. Temporarily.”
“So I figured.” Golda nodded. “I’ll ignore his declaration. Just political noise. Now, should I visit that Bar-Lev Line, Sam? What is it, sort of a Jewish Maginot Line? We know what happened to it.”
More pretense of ignorance, he thought. “Hardly a Maginot Line. If you go there, you’ll see high sand walls stretching along both banks of the Canal, since they’ve raised a rampart to match ours. Crawling into one of our strongpoints won’t tell you much. You’ll find fifteen or so lads in a fortified bunker. The line’s essentially a deterrent — an early warning system, well patrolled and electronically linked, so —”
“What deterrent? Boys are getting killed there, and I must acknowledge that to the Knesset.” She tapped her speech manuscript. “So why aren’t the Egyptians deterred?”
“They are, Madame Prime Minister.” Pasternak took a grave confidential tone. “We have good access to their war plans and doctrine. ‘Period of defiance, period of active defense, period of attrition, period of assault,’ et cetera. Soviet-style military planning, quite professional. They take the Bar-Lev Line seriously as a deterrent, believe me, and as a major obstacle in case of war. But their staff’s not planning on war. Not now and not soon. They know they can’t deliver the goods.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Golda walked to the map and ran a stiff finger around the new borders, taking in the entire Sinai Peninsula. “Dayan likes these defense lines. So do I. Egypt signed Resolution 242, and as long as she flouts it we stay in the Sinai. So let them keep violating the cease-fire, let the big powers keep talking about imposed solutions, and let General Adan keep building our Sinai infrastructure — roads, tank depots, underground headquarters, bridges over the swamps and lagoons” — she suddenly sounded much less ignorant and much tougher — “and whenever they hit us, we hit back, and hit harder. It’s not a solution, but until they’re ready to talk peace it’s a policy.” Her plump hand circled the Sinai. “Meantime, could we have a better buffer, twice the size of all Israel?”
“It’s the only policy, Madame Prime Minister.”
6
The Test
A few days later a crisis meeting was in progress in Leavis’s penthouse suite, looking out on the wrinkling whitecapped sea and the other tall hotels along the Tel Aviv beachfront. Rumor had it that Leavis owned this hotel, though he seldom came to Israel. The film producer Jeff Greengrass, a very fat young man overflowing an armchair in a voluminous black suit, was wheezing, “It’s a hell of a blow to the project, Colonel Nitzan. But congratulations, of course, on your promotion.”
“Is this final?” Sheva Leavis asked Kishote, who sported on his uniform fresh shoulder bars with three gilt leaves. “No chance you can do it?”
“It’s final,” said Kishote. “Sorry.” He had not seen Leavis in many years. The man seemed hardly changed, perhaps a bit more withered; quiet, wispy, with watchful half-closed eyes, and the same strange smile.
“I told them it was final,” said Yael, sitting beside her husband on a broad nubbly sofa, her distended belly in a green wool skirt resting on her knees. “I said that while you were a deputy you might find the time, but not when you command a front-line brigade.”
“Then we must apply to the army all over again,” said Shulamit, a big-bosomed redheaded lawyer who was representing Greengrass in Israel. “A pity.”
“I can recommend other officers,” said Kishote. “The job can be done.”
“Well, there’s a larger question here, Sheva,” said Greengrass, “whether to proceed altogether.”
Shulamit protested in thickly accented English, “Is that a question? Why? I have government approvals all lined up — Defense Ministry, Treasury Ministry, Jerusalem municipality, Arab Affairs, everybody’s very enthusiastic, Mr. Greengrass, and —”
“Not according to General Pasternak. He says all those commitments are under review now.”
“Oh, well. With Golda becoming Prime Minister, naturally people have turned a bit cautious. It may take a little time to loosen things up, but —”
“Shulamit, time is what’s been killing this film,” said Yael. “I found out that much in my trip to Hollywood.”
A sad wheeze from Greengrass. “All too true, Yael, but not our fault.”
“Explain that,” said Leavis.
“Sheva, the movie should have been released a year and a half ago.” The producer took short breaths and talked fast. “We had the script, I had the stars. Israel was hot then, on a roll, the admiration of the world. That’s all been pissed away by the delays here. Now the Israel story is cease-fire violations, terrorist attacks, UN arguments. Downbeat, boring —”
“Is it true, Jeff,” inquired Leavis mildly, “that the mayor of Jerusalem read the script and said — excuse me, ladies — that it was a lot of silly shit?”
“Yes, but we’ve got the mayor’s approval, anyway,” interposed Shulamit. “His deputy fixed that. The deputy was my law partner.”
Kishote was looking for a moment to leave. This whole business had struck him from the start as preposterous; he had gone along with it as a favor to his brother Lee, and he had merely leafed through the script, looking at the tank episodes. In his view the mayor’s comment had been a kindly understatement.
“Sheva, it comes to this,” said Greengrass. “I can still make the film. Preproduction has run up to three hundred thousand dollars —”
“It shouldn’t have,” interposed Yael.
“No, but delays are murder on a movie. Production will now cost two million. To break even we must gross four and a half. That’s where we’re at.”
Leavis gave Kishote his peculiar mirthless smile. “Colonel, how would you advise your brother Lee? Go ahead, or not? He’s in this with me, you know.”
“Why ask Yossi? He knows nothing about films,” Yael expostulated, “and all he ever does — in everything — is go ahead.”
“In my time I’ve done some retreating,” said Yossi, “bringing out my dead and wounded.” A short silence, and he went on. “I’d have advised Lee not to get into films in the first place. But then, I’d have advised him not to get into California real estate, and he’s become a millionaire.”
“Thanks to Sheva,” said Yael.
Leavis shook his head. “Lee Bloom is sharp and very able, on his own.”
“Furthermore, I’d have advised him not to leave his army platoon during a war,” said Yossi. “In fact, not to leave Israel altogether. Lee and I think differently, so don’t ask me how I’d advise my brother.”
Another silence, somewhat unpleasant. Both brothers had been taken into the army back in 1948, on arriving in Israel from the Cyprus refugee camp; and Lee Bloom, then Leopold Blumenthal, had managed to get himself on a plane to America after only six weeks. A touchy business verging on desertion, and squared with some d
ifficulty by Sam Pasternak so that the affluent Lee Bloom could now come and go in Israel. Which he seldom did.
Yael burst out nervously, “Oh, abort it, Sheva. That’s what this is all about, and Jeff can’t decide that. It’s your three hundred thousand, yours and Lee’s.”
Greengrass said, “It’s a hundred percent tax write-off, Sheva.”
“All right. Abort,” said Leavis.
“Oh, no! You’re making a terrible mistake!” Shulamit’s bosom heaved as though she might cry. “At least think it over —”
“Forget it, Shulamit,” said Greengrass. “You’ve done your best, but it’s over.”
“Yes, that’s that,” said Leavis. “It’s over.”
Shulamit bitterly sighed.
“I’ll tell you something, though, Sheva,” panted Greengrass, “I’ve become hooked on this wild place, crappy government and all. There’s a story here, a great story. You have to find the story, and none of this Jewish boy meets Arab girl — or Arab girl meets Jewish boy — horse manure. Romeo and Juliet it ain’t. But there’s a bloody fortune in an Israel movie. Only you have to find the story.”
“Find the story and I’ll find the money,” said Leavis. “I’m not discouraged.”
“I can introduce you to some brilliant Israeli writers,” said Shulamit. “Like my nephew Chaim.”
“Another time,” said Greengrass. “I fly home tonight.”
Don Kishote and Yael rode down together in a crowded elevator. When they emerged into the lobby he inquired, “Well, so what did the doctor say?”
She patted her belly. “I’m healthy as a horse. I could drop it in a field anytime and start licking it clean, but his best guess is two more weeks.”