Israelis seldom run out of conversation, but after dinner at the Baraks’ the talk was halting, as the four parents avoided the question in all their minds: namely, what to all the devils was happening with Dov and Galia? Nor did the men want to involve the wives in war talk. The November election was a safe topic. Barak feared, so he said, that Sharon’s attempt to form a “Likud” bloc to challenge Labor would give the religious splinter parties leverage to force through more blue laws. Luria argued that no political price was too high to get rid of Labor’s arteriosclerotic socialism.
“Come on, Benny,” said Barak, “can you picture that crazy Begin as our head of government?”
“This is a crazy country,” said Luria, “and crazier developments have turned out well.”
The opening of the outside door put an end to all this. Galia sailed in dishevelled and radiant, Dov close behind. “We have two announcements,” she carolled. “First, we’re starved. Second —” her sparkling glance invited Dov to speak.
“We’re engaged,” he said. “Shana tova!”
The day after Rosh Hashanah, Noah telephoned his father from Haifa to hint at ominous new naval intelligence. Barak responded, “Drive down here, let’s not talk on the phone about it,” and Noah soon arrived in coveralls, obviously having broken all speed limits. They sat down to lunch on what remained of Nakhama’s New Year kreplach soup, and Barak told him about the engagement.
“Engaged? Look, Abba, I like Dov, he’s first class, but she’s only seventeen —”
“Well, she’ll do her sadir service first. That’s another long time of growing up. Right now they’re planning to go skiing in Switzerland after Yom Kippur, if he can get a three-day leave. It’s Benny’s engagement present to them.”
“A three-day leave?” Noah stopped eating. “Elohim, hasn’t the air force gone on alert?”
“Not unless I haven’t been told, and that’s most unlikely.”
Noah dropped his spoon with a clank. “Okay. I may be stepping out of line to say this, Abba, but I came down here to say it. In the name of God, the Arabs are about to go to war! Doesn’t the air force know that? Doesn’t the Prime Minister? Doesn’t the Defense Ministry? Don’t you?”
“You’re talking about your naval intelligence reports.”
“Exactly, and it’s war this time, believe me.”
Noah reeled off the preparations for combat that naval intelligence was tracking in the Syrian and Egyptian fleets. Barak nodded and nodded, regarding his son with a glum mien. “Noah, your admiral and his chief intelligence officer were here for hours yesterday, arguing with General Zeira. He knows those facts, and a lot more they don’t know. His assessment remains ‘very low probability.’ ”
Noah gnawed his lips. “And is Golda Meir actually going to France, as the papers say?”
“She is.”
“To address some stupid socialist convention?”
“No, the Council of Europe.”
“What’s that? Does it have any military power? Is it part of NATO?”
“NATO? No, it’s a forum for talk about political unity and human rights.” Barak pushed back his plate, and looked his son in the eye. “I’ll trust you with a confidence. I objected forcibly to her leaving Israel now.”
“Good for you, Abba! And what did she say?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, pretty exactly. She said: ‘The world’s greatest soldier is my Minister of Defense, and he has great generals under him — Dado, Tallik, Bren, Arik, Raful, you know them all. Do those warriors need an old lady nursemaiding them and second-guessing them?’ ”
Noah broke in mulishly, “Maybe they do —”
“Listen! She went on, ‘It’s an important honor for Israel that I address that council. Cancelling would play right into Arab hands. Their game is to paralyze us, to keep Israel from functioning like a normal country. Anyway, I’ll be back the next day, and at worst I can return in five hours.’ ” Barak shrugged. “That’s what she said.”
“B’seder, Abba. So that’s that. I guess I had my nerve coming here. But I’ll tell you this. When it starts — and it’s going to, very soon — the navy will be stripped for action, with warmed-up engines.”
“That’s fine for the navy, Noah. It’s not the same as alarming our people and the superpowers by mobilizing the reserves, and giving the Arabs just the excuse they may seek to attack.”
“Be straight with me, Abba. Do you think the reserves should be mobilized?”
They stared hard at each other. “Noah, I’ve been disgracefully wrong on that question before. I’m not the chief of military intelligence.”
After an awkward moment, Noah spoke with a complete change of tone. “Have I ever told you about the French girl I met in Cherbourg?”
“Yes. Julie something, father in the fish business?”
“Good memory. Julie Levinson. She’s here, and she’s got herself a job in the French Embassy. Keen girl.”
Barak smiled. “Chasing you down, is she?”
Not returning the smile, Noah said a shade stiffly, “Julie’s here for real. She knows all about Daphna, and she’s not chasing me. Lovely girl, though. Sweet, stable, intelligent.”
“Well, with all these engagements going on, what about Daphna?”
“I’m going now to her studio, as she calls it.”
“Will you come home for Yom Kippur?”
“Not in our state of alert, not unless our admiral relaxes a lot.”
“Well, if not, have an easy fast.”
“You too, Abba.”
Noah had to ring several times before Daphna in a smeary smock opened the door of her dingy cellar room in Jaffa. “Oh, it’s only you,” she said, wiping her hands on a rag. “Come in. It’s a frightful mess.”
“What does that mean, ‘only you’?”
“Oh, just that I’m expecting a guy from the Mekhess. Tax problem. What are you doing here?”
For answer he took her in his arms. “Oo-ah,” she said between kisses, “how ardent! You’re almost as grimy as I am, so — No, no! Hey, hands off! Easy, motek!” She broke free. “Why aren’t you in Haifa?”
“I had to see my father in Jerusalem. I’m on my way back, but I wanted to talk to you, hamoodah. There’s going to be a war.”
“What? A war?” She gestured at a radio murmuring American rock-and-roll. “Is there news I missed?”
“Daphna, take my word for it —”
“Noah, did you fall on your head? Things couldn’t be more peaceful. I delivered a menorah this morning to a Canadian client at the Sheraton. Mobs! This city is bubbling like New York. A war?”
He was glancing around at the worktables piled with tools, clay lumps, unfinished ceramics, stained cloths, and dirty dishes. “What kind of tax trouble? You really make that kind of money?”
“Oh, prutot [pennies]. But they’re after me all the same. God, there’s no place to sit down, is there?”
She cleared a skirt, sweater, and frilly underwear off a cot. He pulled her down beside him and asked, “Are you going home to Tel Nof base for Yom Kippur?”
“By your life, no! My father’s importing Hassidim to conduct services at the base. He’s getting real strange. I’ll stay right here, I have work to do.”
“On Yom Kippur?”
“Noah, you know me. Why pretend?”
“Well, come to Haifa, at least. We’ll be in port, for sure —” He was fondling her hand. He stopped and pointed to her wristwatch. “What’s this?”
“Oh, that. Dzecki gave it to me.”
“A Rolex?”
“I tried to refuse it, motek. He insisted, the fool. He was just too sweet about it.”
“Yes, and he can afford it.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, why shouldn’t I have it? Dzecki’s matured a lot, you know. He’s staying on in the army. I admire him.”
This visit was not going at all as Noah had intended. He had come to snatch a last sweet tumble before the battle, but romance was clearly not
on Daphna’s agenda. Not yet. A change of mood called for, alcohol indicated. “Let’s have a beer, Daph. What are you working on now?”
“Oh, menorahs, menorahs. What else?” She went and took a bottle from a rusty icebox. “But at last through Dzecki I’ve got one decent commission, Samson killing a lion, for a hotel lobby. There’s this rich kablan in Haifa, Avram Gulinkoff, he builds hotels and such. Dzecki and his father have formed a company with him, and —”
“What, with Guli? They’re in business with Guli Gulinkoff? Why, Guli is a gorilla, the biggest crook in Haifa! He’ll eat the flesh off those Americans’ bones. Then he’ll use their bones for soup. For Guli you’re making a Samson? And what’s this, am I drinking alone?”
“When the Mekhess gets here I have to be sharp. It’ll be any minute. Drink up, motek.” Daphna paced the little room. “Okay, Dzecki says Guli is sort of gross, but why a gorilla? Apparently he knows a lot about art. He owns a Degas and a Miró.”
“Did he hang them in his jail cell?”
“Ha, you’re in a sour mood. You know the indictment was dropped, and he never spent an hour in jail. Dzecki says the politicians eat out of Guli’s hand. Guli gets permits, clearances, variances in a day that for other kablans can take a year — What time is it?”
“Daphna, come here. Sit down.”
“Well, the thing is —”
The doorbell rang. With an exasperated shrug, she answered it, and Yoram Sarak came in, carrying two falafels in paper napkins. The apparition of this hairy iconoclast in dark glasses was a most disagreeable surprise to Noah. “I know I’m early, Daph, but — By my life, it’s Horatio Hornblower,” exclaimed Sarak. “Daphna didn’t tell me, Admiral, or I’d have brought another falafel. No problem, you can have mine, I’m getting over a spastic colon. Ma nishma?”
“So you work for the Mekhess now?” Noah said.
“Me? The Mekhess? Are you crazy?”
“My mistake.” Noah looked at Daphna, who seemed quite at her ease, except that her ears were going pink.
“Say, Admiral, do you happen to know a navy officer, Ben-Ami Bernstein?”
“What about Ben-Ami?”
“He says that there’ll be a war any day, hard navy intelligence. This is serious. I’m all set to hop to Athens after Yom Kippur, I’ve bought tickets for me and a friend. Isn’t Ben-Ami out of his mind?”
“Ben-Ami’s mouth works with no connection to his mind.”
“That’s reassuring.” Sarak glanced from Daphna to Noah. “Well, you’ve got company, Daphna, and I’ve got a column to write. Sure you won’t have my falafel, Admiral?”
“Enjoy it, and take care of your colon.”
As Sarak closed the door Noah said, “Are you going to Athens with that bedbug?”
“Noah, you’re so cranky, and who are you, anyway, to call such a brilliant writer a bedbug? Why did you come here in such a rotten mood?”
“I came here because the navy’s on full war alert, and God knows when I’ll see you again —”
“Navy and war, navy and war, that’s your whole world. It isn’t mine. I have my own friends, I go my own way, and —”
“To Athens, for instance?”
Daphna flung out at him, “All right, to Athens. There! How often do I get to see you? What am I supposed to do with myself? If you’re jealous, for God’s sake, don’t be. As far as all that goes, I think Yoram’s despicable, why, he’s got a friend of mine pregnant right now. He’s an utter lowlife and to me not attractive in the least, not in that way, but he’s fun, fun. You don’t know what fun means, except in bed.”
These two had once broken up for almost a year, and Noah felt that another break might well be imminent. Let it come, he thought. Slavery to a girl, any girl, even Daphna Luria, was not for Noah Barak. Showdown. “You’re not going to Athens, Daphna.”
“Oh, no?”
“You won’t be able to, for one thing. The war will break out first, so —”
“Foolishness.” She glanced at the Rolex. “Listen, enough of this, it’s no good. You’re going back to Haifa now, aren’t you? I have to see Guli with some sketches. Drive me there.”
“My Porsche is in the repair shop.”
She looked startled, then said slowly and coldly, “Dzecki is younger than you, darling, and he’s more of a mentsch. I like him. My friends like him. He amuses Yoram like anything. Dzecki’s witty, good-humored, broad-minded, he’s not demanding like you —”
“He’s rich.”
“You want a fight, don’t you? Have it, then. You may become chief of operations one day, Noah, you’re very smart, you come from a wonderful family, but you’re as narrow as this finger.” She flourished it in his face. “And with a father like Zev Barak! How is it possible? I’ve wondered for years.”
“Athens is off, Daphna, do you hear?”
“Oh, go to the devil.”
Noah strode out of the flat, started off in his car with a squeal and a roar, and squealed and roared to the French Embassy.
The corridor of the Defense Ministry was lined with blown-up photographs of former ministers — Ben Gurion, Lavon, Eshkol, all canny old Labor politicians — and finally the incumbent, the world-renowned warrior with the eye patch, in suit and tie. Usually Zev Barak walked by the pictures unseeing, but today the seamed stern faces of the departed ministers seemed to be warning him that Israel’s survival was now partly on his shoulders. From behind a big desk in the office next to Dayan’s, Pasternak greeted him with the old sardonic grin. Barak asked as he sat down, “What’s your position here, Sam, exactly?”
“The minister’s still figuring that out. Meantime I’m here, on leave from Kivshan.”
“Well, thank God you’re here.”
“Thank Dayan. Not quite the same, except in this building. He kicks off Labor’s election campaign tomorrow, so I’m keeping abreast of field reports of the Arab buildup while he politicks. Same drill as when he used to skitter around the fighting fronts. He’s in there right now” — a thumb toward a side door — “working on a speech.” He fixed a heavy-lidded glance on Barak. “What do you hear from Golda? How did they like her speech in Strasbourg?”
“Sam, that’s why I’m here. Now she’s decided to go on from there to Vienna.”
“L’Azazel, she has? Why?”
“To get Kreisky to reopen the transit camp.”
“That won’t take long. She’ll accomplish nothing, he’ll just shit on her, that apostate dog. His knees tremble at the sound of Arabic.”
Chancellor Kreisky had recently closed Israel’s only transit camp in Europe for the few Jews trickling out of the Soviet Union. Arab gunners had seized seven of these emigrants on a train and threatened to murder them all and explode terror all over Austria unless the Schonau Castle camp was shut down. Kreisky had at once complied and provided the terrorists air passage to Libya.
“I’ve been on the phone with her,” Barak said, “arguing against her going to Vienna. It’s an idiocy —”
“Well, listen, I can understand her. The election’s a month away, and she’s a politician. Our media are screaming Schonau, terrorists, Soviet Jews, and Kreisky. Biggest tumult in years, and she’s showing action.”
“Sam, would Dayan consider telephoning Golda to come straight home?”
“Ask him,” Pasternak said, as the side door opened and Moshe Dayan walked in.
Totally ignoring Barak, he handed Pasternak several sheets. “This is a passage I just dictated. Verify any fact you’re not sure of. Glance at the last paragraphs right now.”
Dayan’s demeanor was different here than in Golda’s office, Barak observed. Here he was the most powerful man in Israel, with a budget as large as all the other ministries put together; also the master of a million Arabs in the territories. But when he was in her presence she was the boss, and Dayan knew it and showed it. It also struck Barak that Dayan was looking much happier, better groomed, and thicker in the middle since marrying again.
“I would cut t
his part, Minister,” said Pasternak, pointing. “Too complicated.”
“That stays. It’s her policy and mine. The Galili Document in a few words.” This was a Labor Party manifesto waffling on the issue of the settlements. Dayan went out with an unsmiling nod at Barak.
“Well, why didn’t you ask him?” inquired Pasternak.
“Ha!”
“Listen, Zev, what’ll you accomplish by hurrying her back? It’s one more day. The facts in the field are threatening, but that’s happened before.”
“Not this threatening.”
“Well, if a blow does come, we’re ready to absorb it. We spent millions during BLUE/WHITE, remember, on the new roads and the forward depots of ammunition, tanks, and supply reserves. That stuff’s all in place now.”
“Golda has a nose, Sam. If she were here, she’d know whether to mobilize.”
“A nose is fine. So’s our military intelligence, and she’ll get seventy-two hours’ warning of any turn toward war.”
“Yes, we’ve heard that from Zeira over and over. You believe it?”
“I know it.” Their eyes locked in confrontation. Pasternak repeated, “Seventy-two hours. I know it.” The tone was hard, and the look said, Don’t press me further.
“Okay, Sam, you know it.”
Utterly exhausted, her face dead-gray, Golda arrived at the airport next night in a drenching rainstorm. Barak held his tongue, riding with her to her Ramat Aviv home. The rain lashed the car, the windshield wipers danced, and neither spoke. At last the Prime Minister growled, “Ayzeh davar akher!” [“What an unmentionable thing!” — i.e., a hog.] To my face, he turned me down. So cold, so deaf, so indifferent. Only interested in crawling to the Arabs. ‘We live in different worlds,’ he said. Different worlds! He’ll learn one day, that apostate davar akher, that for Jews it’s all one world.” Both she and Pasternak were rather hard on Kreisky, Barak thought. The Austrian was frankly anti-Zionist, true, yet at times he had secretly intervened to help Jews in mortal danger. In Golda’s present mood, of course, she wasn’t to be argued with. Her anger once vented, her tone lightened. “Nu, Zev, so we meet tomorrow morning. It’s serious?”