Danny had returned to Israel in April and had begun working with the foreign minister. I stayed with Mom in Rome until July, so that she could complete her degree in English literature. There was a lull in the pressure. No receptions and no need to host events. Suddenly, our lives became very quiet and I loved it. We were listening to music and looked at old albums of artists that Theo had sent us but we’d not opened before. We could leave the house without bodyguards and even had conversations late at night like we used to.
Mom was bothered by the phone calls from Israel, especially from Rosette, the all-knowing manicurist who lived one floor below us in the house in Bak’a. Now she was the head of the building homeowners’ association. Unlike her sister Tami who was all heart and took care of us fondly in Rome, I still couldn’t find anything nice about Rosette who remained mean-spirited in the long distance calls. She would talk with Mom in French, and without mercy would invent stories about how our nice Jerusalem apartment had become an orgy pad. Mom would listen quietly, cry, and say, “You’re imagining things. He works hard and we will look into it.” Danny usually called on Saturdays. He would try hard to be nice and say beautiful things to Mom. She would smile through the tears and would usually say, “Take care of yourself, chèri.”
Uzi managed to visit us on his way to Geneva, where he was now stationed as deputy head of our diplomatic mission, but more than that, for medical treatment he received as part of medical research of South Eastern Asian viruses run by the UN World Health Organization. Uzi had had a bad experience with the rare virus he’d contracted in Manila and that had left him with recurring complications of jaundice. Danny, his best friend, just noted that “Uzi, with his special luck. One time he’s dying and then another time he catches a privileged kind of herpes. I tried to help him by telling him that it was all in his head. It’s a need for attention; something psychosomatic. I read about it once in Couriera De La sierra.” He wasn’t too impressed
Uzi would arrive at all hours of the day and night. In my opinion, he was looking for shelter from Thelma, nicknamed Thelmoush, his awful wife, of almost five years now, who would call him honey and tell everyone about how she was instrumental in building him up. Uzi would bring me chocolate and would sit with Mom for many hours, telling her stories and listening to her for a bit. “You need to understand him,” he would tell Mom, just like he used to console the girls that Danny would bring to their apartment, back when they were soldiers. “He is built differently; he is not like us.”
Dad sold Uzi the big Fiat. I felt that he’d somehow cheated him a little bit and overcharged him. Uzi enjoyed driving Dad’s car anyway, and even took Mom and me to the airport when the time finally came to go home.
We found our apartment in Bak’a surprisingly clean and in order. There were no signs of orgies. We only saw Danny on the weekend when he returned from a visit to Egypt with the minister. It took us almost a month to get used to him again. One evening, he surprised me, “Tomorrow, Shira, we’ll spend the whole day together.” It couldn’t be for real. There must have been a trick hiding there. “Believe it or not, I was called up for army reserve duty. The minister went crazy and called the ministry of defense to cancel it, so all I have to do is to report there, sign some forms and go home. So if you want, you can join me to Ramat Gan. We can go to watch a soccer game at the stadium.”
I was amazed. The busiest man on earth would have some time for me. It sounded like a rare opportunity.
“Are you sure they will release you?”
“Undoubtedly. You know that there are people taking care of it.”
“And serving in the reserves is not important?”
He looked surprised and gave me the feeling of being stupid. “My work is more important. Don’t you want to watch a soccer match?”
He was certain that I loved soccer. Back in Rome, I had always made sure I knew the team names so that I could understand what he was talking to me about and maybe manage to talk to him a bit more.
“Sure thing,” I said, and was happy. Like Theo and Tami, he didn’t care at all whether I went to school or not. Since leaving us in Rome, he had grown fatter and looked more like Theo, which wasn’t a bad thing, but he didn’t like to hear about it.
It was funny seeing him in uniform. It wasn’t a great idea, but it was what was written in the note he’d received, and he didn’t want to aggravate them before being released on the spot. Back in his days in the military intelligence branch, he had been given a temporary honorary officer’s rank when he’d been escorting visiting high-rank officers of foreign armies. He had never completed officer school but managed to somehow convince the officer at human resources to let him keep the rank of captain when he was discharged. He still looked like an elderly rent-a-cop when he wore his uniform.
The sprawling lobby of Paratrooper House in Ramat Gan was teeming with captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels wearing red paratrooper boots and camouflage rain gear. They looked strong and impressive. I was imagining which of them I would adopt as my father and which one my father would look like if he were alive. Danny had worn his captain’s rank with regular black shoes and he seemed embarrassed. His pant legs showed dangling laces which he’d tied awkwardly in a knot. His shirt was too small and his stomach was putting two central buttons at risk. The army, according to the gossip in the corridors, was taking mid-level officers now, those who weren’t top commanders nor junior officers, and sending them to do reconnaissance and supervision in South Lebanon. It was a horrible land of terror cells and roadside bombs, of burning troop transporters, and of patrols, which serve as sitting ducks for Palestinian kids with anti-tank rockets.
There was excitement in the room of thirty-somethings who were happy to dress up as soldiers once again and play adventure and chases. It was, at the same time, the first time that I felt an acrid smell of fear in the air. Someone in the corner was whispering frantically, “I can’t. My knee, it’s my knee, and what will I do if I have to run?” Danny looked lost. He stood patiently in line with the other officers whose nervousness was growing. When he reached the registration desk he sighed for a moment, and then used his lower tone, “I am Danny Taylor from the foreign ministry,” he said and looked at the female soldier who was biting the tip of her pen. She was short and dark and obviously completely unimpressed.
The female soldier by her side said, “What is it? The foreign ministry? What does that have to do with anything? And who is this girl anyway? Is he going to the training course in Elyachin or to the shooting range at Tzrifin?”
Danny observed them patiently, “Who is Colonel Laniado, here?”
The soldier gave him a hollow look and said, “What? Laniado is busy. I have you down for two things: shooting range and military back to shape. What are you doing with this girl?” She looked at me for a moment with her eyes wide open and sucked stylishly on a cigarette before going back to her papers.
“She is my daughter, she is here with me for the day and I have to talk to Laniado. Until I do, I am not going anywhere.”
The assisting soldier gave him a longer look now, staring at his shoes and then asked, “Are you refusing?”
“No, not refusing.” Danny had started to sweat. “Don’t start with this bullshit, sweetheart. Is Laniado here? Just tell him that Taylor is here. I have to see him, and you had better do it.” One of the soldiers was smoking nervously and the other was curling some hair around her finger.
“What do you mean?” asked one of them.
“Honey,” the other one said. “You don’t scare us. The crap we’ve been getting since this morning may scare others, but you are going to Elyachin, and Laniado will visit Elyachin, and you can talk to him there.”
“We’ll be sure to tell him that Taylor wants to talk to him, he will have a good laugh,” her friend whispered to her rather loudly.
Danny took a handkerchief out of his pocket and patted his sweaty forehead.
The reserve major who was standing behind Danny continued talking to som
eone. “Only a rear machine gunner; I will only be a rear machine gunner. I won’t be a driver and I won’t be a front number two, because when you drive over a land mine, the gunner is the first to jump and the first to fly out without the jeep crushing him.”
“Next!” the female soldier said.
Danny turned back to her and said, “What do you mean, next? Where do you think I am going?”
“What is it? Ok, ok, alright.” She’d changed her mind. “Go into that corridor in the back. Go to the first room on the left and talk to the officer who’s there.”
“Sit down, honey, over there in the corner. I’ll be back soon,” said Danny and his voice faltered slightly. He came back after twenty minutes and looked very pale. “You see, that’s how it is here. Some people take longer to understand.” He gave me his hand, which I took happily. Even though he looked a bit funny, he was my father and he was trying very hard.
We went back to the small Subaru that he had bought when Mom and I were still in Rome. We missed the soccer game, and that made me happy because we went to the beach in Tel Aviv instead. He bought me a milkshake from a strange stall and we sat down on white plastic chairs with our backs to the sea, to avoid the sun’s glare. We watched the couples walking by, the homosexuals looking for a pick-up for the night and the hookers soliciting the tourists. I felt mature. He tried to tell me about his work
“It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s fascinating; a true challenge,” he said at least three times. He was still wearing the uniform, and quite agitated at the visit to the Paratroopers House’.
“Yes, I can see.” I was hoping he would say something more real.
“You understand, it’s the problems of South Lebanon and the Palestinians that we need to solve. We must look forward, to the future, because if we go on trying to settle old scores, we’ll never get anywhere.”
“And you won’t have to serve in the reserves anymore?”
“No, what happened today was just a nasty mistake.”
“In all honesty, though, how do you always manage to get out of nasty mistakes?”
“Before everything, I try to see the person before me and understand what might buy him or break him.” He was looking at the colorful people jamming the street and tried to end the conversation.
“Break him?”
“It’s better to buy them, this way you don’t leave broken people along the way.”
“You don’t want them waiting behind the next corner?”
“Is that what they call it?” he giggled. “Yes, that’s always a good idea.”
“Even when it comes to a stupid soldier girl?”
“What about ice cream?” He very much wanted to change the subject.
“I already had one. You forgot.”
“Well.” He became more agreeable, “As you saw, even a moderately smart soldier can cause damage. I handle every problem as if it is the most serious problem in the world. You can’t degrade any problem or any person standing in your way.”
I was happy that he was opening up and tried to push my luck further, “Is it because of all these problems with the Palestinians that you hardly ever come home?”
“Actually, yes. I know that this is not an easy sacrifice for you and for your mother. I really appreciate the understanding that you and Mom are showing.”
I was having a hard time with the way he was saying Mom. I was now the problem he had to concentrate on. I suddenly saw Gertrude as if she was sitting down next to me on a plastic chair, checking my fingernails.
“My mother may understand,” I said quietly. “But I sure don’t.”
Once or twice a month, Danny would come home early and take Mom to a reception or a dinner in honor of a visiting foreign minister. They would go to the King David Hotel and come home late, talking in whispers, or laughing quietly. I knew that on the following day, almost all day, Mom would be less sad.
Rosette, who saw me in the staircase, would still say, “My sweet, poor child; really poor child.” I never asked her why she thought I was a poor child, and I was pretty disgusted by her. I think she noticed it, but she continued trying. Sometimes she would stop me and say, “I have regards for you,” and she would wait for me to ask who from, but all I would say was ‘thank you’ before walking away. One day, she stood at the door to her apartment, gossiping with a client about her ‘young neighbor’. She held a rolled up copy of a woman’s magazine in her hand. When she saw me, she said, “Did you see this? He’s dating a journalist, that sleazeball.” Usually, I didn’t reply in this kind of situation and I would feel sick the whole day. But she added, “The piece of shit. What kind of a father is he? He is lucky you are ready to put up with all of this.”
This was it. Just like they had taught us in pre-army courses in high school, I grabbed two of her fingers and twisted them hard, until she went down on her knees screaming.
“Don’t you dare ever speak about him again, do you hear me?” I whispered, Clint Eastwood-style. “It’s none of my business or anybody else’s business how many men you fuck at night and in the mornings and in the afternoons. Don’t talk about my father ever again and don’t you dare talk to my mother. She’s just pretending to be your friend but she really can’t stand you, and that’s the truth.”
For a while, we didn’t hear from Rosette and I even called Tami in Rome to apologize and to explain. At noon, a few days later, when I returned home, I saw Mom sitting and writing something. Like always she looked pale and sad.
“It’s better than Marcel,” I told her. “Because with Danny at least you care.”
Mom stared at me with a distant look, “Marcel was human. I am not sure that Danny loves anyone at all; with the possible exception of his father.”
“I actually think he loves his mother, if he loves anyone at all,” I said. I remembered how he shuddered when anyone told him he resembled Theo. “I think it’s better to love without being loved than to receive the love of someone you don’t love because it’s nicer to give.” I tried to quote something from one of those women’s magazines to cheer her up. “You have to love, and it doesn’t matter who you are because it gives you a reason to live.” She agreed with the magazine.
At the Rehavia High School, we put on a role play trial for King David who saw Bathsheba bathing on the roof and sent her husband Urijah the Hittite to a certain death in battle, just so he could fool around with Bathsheba. My grades were pretty good and some of the kids envied me for having a father who was a government employee and director of the foreign minister’s bureau. As King David’s defense lawyer, it was hard for me to argue in his favor. The father of Ilan, the prosecutor in the case, was director general of the ministry of education, and he was about to win the case. I was upset, but deep inside I wasn’t too sorry for David. I was also about to learn an important lesson from that case.
I left school after three hours of studies, at eleven, and started walking towards the American Cultural Center, to my little corner with the magazines, with the music cassettes, and with James Dean who was Caleb, a suffering and charming youngster, so different from his twin brother, Aaron who was slick and disgusting.
At the top of Gaza Street, a bus was climbing the hill, panting and fuming. A taxi’s horn scared away a group of pigeons sitting in a cypress tree laden with heavy branches. At the corner of Ramban Street, I saw Theo sitting at his table at the Savion café, talking to two friends. He waved at me and signaled for me to come in like in the past.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, after hurriedly sending away his two friends. His hair was all white but beautifully combed. “You are growing up fast and changing rapidly,” he said, trying to remove an invisible crumb from the school logo on my shirt. I recoiled. I had to change the subject. “Tell me something, do you think that King David had a right, just because he was king, to send someone to a certain death in battle so he could take his wife?” I thought that if I could resolve the question of King David and Urijah the Hittite, I would
find a solution to some terribly important questions.
“You don’t have to be a king to do that,” he replied after a moment’s thought. “Many men would have acted in the same way. The question is, what is acceptable in society? When regular people do it, it’s frowned upon. But when kings fool around, sometimes it’s just part of their charm, especially when nobody really knows what goes on inside the palace behind closed doors. Take Moshe Dayan, for instance. Do you know, when his wife went to Ben Gurion to complain that he was spending too much time with other women, Ben Gurion told her, “But he’s a national hero. He’s allowed to do that.” Theo gave me one of his melancholy and endearing smiles. “Is there any particular problem that you are trying to resolve?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “We are holding a trial for King David at school. So if someone is not a hero, is it forbidden?” I stared at the chocolate residue at the bottom of my clear glass.
“It isn’t a question of what’s allowed or forbidden. The basic question is that of loyalty. A man can be loyal to ideas and to nothing else, or to his people, or to a single man or a single woman, and that’s it, and nothing more than that. It’s impossible to be loyal to everyone who expects you to be. It’s a simple question of priorities.” He was getting bored.
“And what was David loyal to?” I asked quickly. It was important for me to find out. I was getting close to a good line of defense for David.
“Oh, that’s quite obvious,” said Theo. “David was loyal to the kingdom, and he was loyal to the nation, and that’s how he could betray people morning, noon, and night.”
“And that includes sending them to their death?”
“Of course, that is one of the first rights of any king.”
I was beginning to understand but hadn’t made up my mind yet on how this would help me defend David in the trial at school. I did, however, get the feeling that I was getting closer to understanding Danny even if was a long way from King David. I walked on towards the American Cultural Center without paying attention, kicking rocks, and staring at the sky. In my corner of the library, I leafed through Communication Today, trying to get an idea of the world of mass media through that magazine’s glossy pages that smelled sweet, but after a short while, I chose the video cassette of East of Eden again, diving into California’s Salinas Valley. Caleb was trying for the thirtieth time to please Adam, his father, or at least win his respect but like always didn’t stand a chance. Not as long as Adam was still on his feet.