Israel (37 page)

By day her pragmatic self-assurances had weight, but at night, when the sick called out from their flimsy tents and the children, stirring in their nightmare-ridden sleep, wailed so loudly that the jackals in the hills picked up and returned their cries, Rosie could believe the worst. In a world turned upside down by war, a world where the children of once-prosperous Tel Aviv families now wandered pitifully thin and dressed in rags, her parents could well be languishing in a filthy Turkish prison. Her brothers might be forced into the Turkish army and her sisters scattered among the harems of the pashas.

Or somewhere in Jaffa there could be a public square where the bodies were hanging from their heels, half-eaten by buzzing flies, innocent victims of the Turks' anglophobia.

In May a new evacuee presented Rosie with a tattered
envelope that had passed through many hands on its way to Degania. It was a letter from her father. The Glasers were alive and well in Jaffa. Despite their British origins and their religion the Glasers' long-standing relationship with the Turkish authorities had earned them as much goodwill as was possible in the circumstances. That they had never moved from their inn in Jaffa to the Jewish city of Tel Aviv was also in their favor. The Turks promised the Glasers protection and allowed them and a few other remaining Jews to set up a committee and watchmen's group to protect the evacuees' property. For the next few days the children at the nursery wondered why Rosie would suddenly begin to weep.

Haim admired the strength his wife had shown. The land had molded Rosie's character, turned her from a spoiled rich girl into an indomitable heroine of the Zionist struggle.

There had been a cost. Strands of grey had appeared in Rosie's hair and lines were beginning to deepen at the corners of her sable eyes. The soft, dewy-skinned, laughing sprite had been worn down by the wind and sand, as everything was eroded in Galilee. Her laughter was rare, replaced by only the faintest of smiles at the corners of her mouth and by the slightest glint in her eyes. Her curves had shrunk to gauntness. Her slender, graceful fingers were knotted with scars, rough with calluses.

The changes saddened Haim, but he loved his Rosie none the less for the changes worked upon her. In fact he loved her more, if that was possible, and for a curious reason. She had become the practical one of their family. These days it was Rosie, not he, who made decisions by logic as opposed to emotions. Perhaps it had always been that way; perhaps she had always been the responsible one.

Haim found himself thinking about Abe a great deal, at work and in the evenings while playing with his son. He
told Herschel about Abe and his own boyhood in Russia—as much about it as a six-year-old boy could be expected to understand. He often showed Herschel the portrait of himself and Abe.

“That man is your grandfather,” Haim told his son. “I lived to be a man thanks to him, and you have descended from me. The two of us are the result of that man's kindness toward a ragged orphan many years ago in Russia.”

“Orphans like the children here in Degania?” Herschel asked his father, his eyes wide as his young mind made the connections.

“The same, my son. Galilee has become very much like the Russia of my boyhood.”

Haim told Herschel nothing more. He hoped the war would end before the boy was old enough to form strong memories. There was no need for his son to comprehend just how much progress had been rolled back for the halutzim of Degania.

First there was the amount of work to be done. Systems of crop rotation had been devised by the various agricultural settlements to bring about the replenishment of the soil. With the coming of war and the subsequent cutoff of Palestine's ability to import food from the Allied nations, a bread shortage developed. Every settlement set to work growing as much grain as possible, and only grain, so that in a short while the beneficial effects of crop rotation were reversed and the soil was again depleted.

Now, three years after the war came to Palestine, the bread supply was meager and its quality poor. It was supplemented by only a few eggs and not much milk, a diet not so different from what peasant Jews had been forced to live on in Russia.

This sort of farming called for every worker with the least knowledge of agriculture to go out to the fields. It was difficult to maintain the proper Zionist spirit when one
labored hard all day only to return at night to a settlement made intolerable by overcrowding. Soon it would be another rainy season, and once again Degania's carefully laid paths would be churned to mud by too many feet. The evacuees would complain about discomfort and lack of food, not understanding how difficult it was to wrest anything from unyielding Galilee.

At such times it was hard for Haim and the others who belonged to Degania to remember that they were all Jews and ought to band together. As in Russia, the Jews could not afford to be their own worst enemy, and as in Russia, there was somebody to remind them of that fact.

Several times since the beginning of the war Degania had been overrun by detachments of Turkish troops. Sullen, arrogant soldiers in Prussian-inspired khaki tunics and tropical helmets would march through the gates, ominously silent except for the stomp of leather boots, the creak of equipment belts and the rattle of bayonets.

Degania had seen to it that its own few were in a safe place. The guns would be uncovered and turned on the Turks when the British came.

Despite the fact that Degania was behind Turkish lines, news from the outside world did occasionally get through. It was known that the British were advancing from the south toward Jerusalem and that the glorious, long-awaited people's revolution had taken place in Russia. The future once again held promise. For now, however, the Turks ruled.

Each time they invaded it was the same. First the storehouses, granaries and kitchens would be stripped and the people driven out of the buildings to make room for the soldiers. Then the interrogations and tortures would begin.

Haim went through it once. They took him to the dining hall and tied him on his back on one of the long tables so that his feet hung over the edge. Then they slowly removed his shoes and stockings, all the while
questioning him about the whereabouts of Degania's hidden money, British spies, arms caches.

Then they beat him on the soles of his bare feet with the flat of a sword.

What went far beyond the physical pain was having the torture take place in such fondly remembered surroundings. As Haim was being beaten, he found himself gazing at Rosie's partially completed wall mural.

Money, the Turks demanded. British spies, guns. The soldiers would leave off for a bit and then the beating would resume.

Haim kept himself docile by thinking of his son. If I insult these bastards they'll kill me and my boy will be an orphan, he reminded himself.

When it was over Haim had no memory of screaming, but the others said he had, and Haim didn't doubt them. Others screamed as well, and helplessly listening to their anguish seemed as bad as the torture itself.

The Turks always confined their interrogations to the male members of the kibbutz. There was an epidemic of fever going around the evacuees. The Turks, not wanting to expose themselves to it, left that group alone, and Degania's women, aware of the Turks' fastidiousness, always announced to the officers that they had been nursing the sick. The officers would invariably issue an order for their soldiers to leave the women alone.

There was no protection for the men. The soldiers would round them up and jail all of them in one building. They would huddle together, singing songs and nervously joking in a futile attempt to drown out the screams coming from the dining hall.

The Turks always left after a week. There were plenty of other settlements to raid. The physical injuries they inflicted eventually healed, but the shame endured.

*     *     *

One September day while working along the edge of a field bordered by rocks, Haim heard somebody calling him by name. There was an Arab boy close by, peering out at him from behind a limestone boulder.

“A friend has sent me,” the boy said in Arabic. He looked to be eleven or twelve, wizened by malnutrition. He had close-cropped bristles of hair and sunken onyx-black eyes.

Haim glanced around. His nearest coworker was about fifty meters away and had not heard the boy. The closest thing to a weapon Haim had was his hoe. He kept a tight grip on it in case he was being set up for an ambush.

The boy seemed to read his mind. “Don't be afraid. I am to lead you to your friend, that's all.” His hollow-cheeked grin looked disconcertingly skull-like. He was wearing a baggy striped caftan, ludicrously large for him. The fabric draped his skeletal frame like a collapsed tent around its pole.

That the boy knew his name meant nothing. Haim was well known to the fellahin of Um Jumi. He approached, but cautiously. The Arab was a skinny little nothing, but who wasn't these days? He didn't look like he belonged to the Bedouins, and it wasn't like the Bedouins to lure a man into an ambush for no reason. They wouldn't expect a field worker to be carrying anything of value. Anyway, the Bedouins had made themselves scarce since the Turks came.

Haim followed the boy as best he could, but he had to walk around the boulders while the boy capered up and over the silvery limestone like a lizard. Haim soon found himself out of the line of sight of the other field workers. The boy cut across a bone-dry wadi whose surrounding vegetation was as shriveled as dried sponges. In just a few months, when the rains came, all this dusty marl would turn to mud and the scrub would swell and turn green.

“There.”

The boy pointed his pencil-thin finger at a Bedouin in striped caftan and black coat. The man was slouched against a large stone, a rifle across his knees. The man's kaffiyeh was drawn across the lower portion of his face, obscuring his features.

The hoe fell to the ground as Haim eyed the man's rifle. He spread his fingers wide and raised his hands above his head. “I have nothing of value,” he called in Arabic. “Have the boy search me if you like.”

“All I want is my comrade's embrace,” the Bedouin said in Hebrew.

Haim stared.
That voice—
“Yol? That's you?”

The kaffiyeh fell away as Yol leaned his rifle against the stone and got to his feet. Time had put some grey in his beard and he looked very thin and weathered but also fit and healthy. In all he seemed to be in far better condition than on that January night four years ago when he departed Degania with his burden of guilt.

“I'm very glad to see you,” Yol murmured as the two men embraced.

“Everyone will be glad to see you,” Haim laughed. He held on to his friend as if he might vanish. “Especially, in that getup you're wearing. I swear, little monkey, you had me totally fooled.”

Yol pulled back. “I can't return with you to the settlement.”

“What?”

“I've come for you,” Yol replied. “Haim, go back to your work. Tonight after supper tell Rosie you want to go for a walk and—” He stopped. “But you must tell me. How are she and Herschel? The boy is well?”

“Everyone is fine, and Herschel is almost bigger than you, little monkey. You're welcome at Degania, Yol. You're still a member; there's no need to worry.”

“You don't understand, but you will after tonight if you'll meet Jibarn”—he gestured toward the Arab boy
waiting patiently—“just beyond Degania's gate. He'll lead you to my campsite. Will you come?”

Haim made a face, then shrugged. “Of course I'll come, although I still say you're being foolish.”

“Remember, no one must know I'm back,” Yol warned. “Now go back to work before the others miss you and come searching. It'd be just my luck to be stoned for a Bedouin.”

Haim reluctantly started back. “Tonight? You'll be here?”

“Absolutely. I'm not a ghost, you know.”

“And I'm not dreaming.” Haim grinned. “You're really back.”

The rest of the day crawled by. He could not imagine the reason for Yol's mysterious behavior. He hardly heard the conversations during supper. He just stared at his plate, pushing the food around with his fork. Several times he glanced up to see Rosie watching him.

At last the meal was over and Haim and his family were strolling back to the cottage in the twilight. “I think I'll go for a walk,” Haim began.

Herschel, walking beside his father, tugged at Haim's fingers. “Take me, Papa.”

“We'll all go,” Rosie agreed.

“Well, I'd like to go by myself.”

“By yourself,” Rosie repeated, her expression deadpan.

“Yes.”

“Haim, you want to tell me what's going on with you? What is this new silliness?”

“Rosie, don't talk that way to me.” Haim glared at his wife, the anger raging within him. Lately there had been an almost imperceptible but definite change in Rosie's attitude. He saw the change in the way she looked at him; it was evident when she listened to him speak, obvious when she replied.

It was a mixture of impatience, aloofness and maybe
even a little contempt. Their lovemaking banished it for a time, but always it returned. It chilled Haim the way her wide, sensual mouth hardened into a thin line, while her warm gaze cooled to an icy, impenetrable sheen.

“I'll see you in a little while.” Haim made his voice calm so as not to upset Herschel, who was anxiously peering up at his parents.

“Maybe later you can confide in your wife,” Rosie said through clenched teeth. She'd been on the verge of apologizing, but she was losing her temper all over again to what she perceived to be his insolent indifference. “Go, do what you want. Your son and I will go home.”

Why does this happen? she wondered. How have I changed? He's a good man, but I constantly hurt him.

It was the war that was mostly to blame, she believed, the war and the way it had ravaged Degania. She had gotten used to the spartan, self-sufficient kibbutz way of life and had learned to love the harsh, rugged splendor of Galilee, but this valley was no place for the sick and the weak. The evacuees were turning this rough-hewn paradise into hell. How much longer could the membership provide for so many helpless people? And if Degania collapsed, what then?