“Actually, General, Aryeh’s bar mitzvah.”
“I see. Yael, did you get my message? I’m coming.”
“Oh, you are! Lovely.”
“D’you mind if I bring Eva along?”
Yael said to Eva, with shaded grace, “Well, how nice. By all means, you’re invited.”
“I’ll have to change plans,” said Eva. “But I’ll try to come.”
“Do. Eva, this is my brother-in-law.”
“Oh, who doesn’t know about Lee Bloom,” smiled Eva, “and Sheva Leavis, the California real estate geniuses?”
Lee gave her an admiring grin, which irked Yael. Men were such idiots. The headwaiter greeted Yael by name, and scraped and bowed them through the clatter and spicy smells of the crowded deli to a rear booth. “A knockout, that receptionist,” said Lee Bloom, with a humorous leer. “Think she’d like to work in Las Vegas? We could use her.”
“You’d have to check with my brother Benny. She’s his friend.”
“No kidding, she is? Lucky him. I’m not starting up with the air force.”
“Lee, you’re sweet to have come so far for the bar mitzvah.”
“Well, to be frank, Yael, I’m not here just for that. Sheva’s been offered the President Hotel in Eilat. It’s gone bankrupt, you know, and we have an idea about it.” He waved for a waiter. “Let’s order first. Will Joe find us back here?” Lee Bloom, and nobody else, called Yossi Nitzan “Joe.”
“He’ll find us.”
Delicatessen smells made Yael ravenous, but after glimpsing Eva Sonshine she ordered cold sliced turkey breast, no mayonnaise. Bloom, who was getting plumper and balder by the year, asked for a hot pastrami sandwich with double pastrami. “Now about that hotel.” Bloom became all business. “You know how well Sheva and I have done in Las Vegas. A hotel with a casino is a money machine, Yael. Your best guess — chances of putting a casino in Eilat?”
“Gambling? Here?”
“Why not? It would bring in tons of foreign exchange.”
“Dear, neon signs and naked showgirls in Israel? Unthinkable. The government would fall.”
“Who says we do the glitz? Ever been to a Swiss casino? You could be in a Reform temple. Posh, mannerly, quiet, tasteful, the croupiers are like ushers or undertakers. Look, the country’s swamped with tourists, and what’s there to do here, once you’ve rushed around seeing all the holy places? Unless there’s a fun reason to come again, Israel is a one-shot. The Swiss know that. When you’ve seen one Alp you’ve seen them all, and sooner or later all skiers just break their legs. Casinos, Yael! I tell you, Israel would never have to grow another orange.” She burst out laughing. “Look, I’m serious. Now, Moshe Dayan runs the country, and you’ve known the guy forever —”
A hard hand gripped Lee Bloom’s shoulder. “Leo, ma nishma [what’s new]?”
“Joe!” He jumped up, and they embraced. “My God, how long has it been? Years and years.”
There the brothers stood, arms around each other, the Israeli colonel and the Los Angeles real estate man, and Yael wondered that she had ever seen a resemblance between the sand-brown lean Kishote and the pale pudgy Lee. She said, “So, you wouldn’t talk over the phone, but what’s doing? Why have you left the Sinai?”
Slipping into the booth, Kishote ordered a beer from a hovering waiter. “Sharon has just made me his chief of staff for Southern Command, and —”
“Oo-wah!”
“Big promotion, eh?” said Lee. “Congratulations, Joe.”
“It’s not a promotion, Leo. I’ll miss my brigade, I love those men. It’s just more responsibility.” He turned to Yael. “And we’re meeting with the General Staff in an hour, about an outrageous violation of the cease-fire. That’s why I’m here. We may have to go on to Jerusalem.”
“What cease-fire?” Lee inquired. “Always something going on here, isn’t there?”
Kishote did not know, for very few outside the air force did, about the victory of Luria’s squadron. But a much improved American cease-fire plan had gone into effect right after the rout of the Soviet pilots, backed by a Russian guarantee of Egyptian compliance. He described how, in the sunrise that followed the agreed midnight cease-fire deadline, soldiers had come crawling out of the rampart bunkers on both sides of the Canal, waving at each other. This war was all news to him, Lee Bloom confessed, mixed up in his mind with the usual terrorist raids.
So with no trace of irony or impatience, Don Kishote sketched Nasser’s War of Attrition for his brother in a few words. “We’ve licked him,” he concluded. “After eighteen months, he’s accepted a three-month standstill that restores the status quo ante. He lost half his air force and thousands of dead civilians and soldiers. Mortgaged his country to the Russians, and still he accomplished nothing. We gave up not one inch of the Sinai, and we never will except for a peace treaty. Maybe now he’s got the idea —” He broke off. General Sharon was approaching. He wore a dark suit and blue tie, but there was no mistaking his massive swinging stride.
“Hello, Yael.” A smile dissolved Sharon’s formidable air to charming warmth. “I hate to disturb your lunch, but by your leave, I want a word with your Don Kishote.”
“Of course.”
Heads turned as Sharon and his new chief of staff started walking out. “By God there’s Pasternak too,” said Sharon. “Just our man.” With the same warm smile he had shone on Yael, he borrowed Pasternak from Eva Sonshine. The three men sat down in a gloomy far corner of the lower lobby, on stiff brown leather furniture.
“Sam, is the intelligence conclusive on the missile batteries?” Sharon’s inquiry was low and sharp.
“Oh, absolutely.” A resigned shrug. “Right after the Egyptians signed the cease-fire, they and the Russians started moving them up to the Canal, working at night.”
Sharon growled, “The terms of the cease-fire prohibited such an advance, no?”
“Why, that was the crux of the deal, Arik. The Americans accepted the Russian guarantee, so we had to, but Egypt and the Soviets have acted in total bad faith. The batteries are now lined up all along the waterline, and they’re openly hardening up the sites by day.”
“Sam Pasternak, are you saying,” Sharon’s voice dropped to an ominous rumble, “that we fight and win a long bloody war, and Nasser completely reverses the outcome with a sneaky ruse? Agrees to a standstill, then strikes a foul blow? And our government will stand for that?”
“What’s there to do?”
“Cross the Canal in brigade force, that’s what there is to do. Destroy as many of these moved-up batteries as we can, and hold the bridgehead till the rest are pulled back to the agreed-on fifty-kilometer line —”
“Reopen the war, you mean.”
“Maybe, maybe not. That’s up to the enemy. I mean a blow for a blow!”
“Look, Arik, the shooting has stopped.” Pasternak sounded terribly weary. “The borders arc unchanged. We stand on the Canal. The other Arabs are calling Nasser a betrayer and a coward for accepting the cease-fire. Our people are tired of war, those who’ve paid attention to it. Tired of lists of the dead. The government calls it a victory, and Nasser’s moving up the missiles won’t change that.”
“Victory? Victory of an ostrich. Lost victory, unless we do something.” Sharon stood up. “Kishote, you’ll go straight to plans and operations section from here, to discuss the logistics for a brigade crossing at Kantara.”
“Yes, General.”
Pasternak said, “Arik, there’s no heavy bridging equipment for such an assault —”
“We’ll find bridging equipment,” Sharon said, “or we’ll cross in rubber boats, or we’ll swim across, but by God, we’ll cross. The surprise will shatter the Egyptians. They can’t deal with the unforeseen. Before they recover we’ll get the job done at Kantara. Then the Americans will have to come and verify the illicit advance of the missiles, and force their withdrawal. It will happen, and it will work. I’m off to meet with the General Staff.” He lumbered away and u
p the staircase.
Pasternak and Yossi glanced wryly at each other. “Like your new job?” Pasternak inquired.
“You’re right, bridging’s the problem,” said Kishote, half to himself. “And it’s not the equipment, we could make do with what we’ve got. It’s putting the bridges into place. Laying bridges with sharpshooters and machine gunners lining the ramparts on the other side at point-blank range, backed by heavy artillery, will call for a suicide squad of engineers. Lots of them, because they won’t last long. Nor will the bridges.”
“Put your mind at rest. Golda can read Nixon like a book. She never forgets the end of the Suez War, Soviets and Americans combining against us. The Americans are still up to their necks in Vietnam, Nixon’s in a touchy mood, and he’s claiming this cease-fire as his great achievement for peace and détente. A cross-canal attack would infuriate him, and it won’t happen. Arik’s butting a stone wall.”
“Well, that’s his career.”
With a twisted grin Pasternak said, “And yours now, Don Kishote.” He stood up. “See you at Aryeh’s party.”
The bar mitzvah reception on a lawn in Zahala was a buzzing social success despite the August sultriness. Army people, kib-butzniks, and Yael’s political and business friends came. Presents for Aryeh piled up. Moshe Dayan appeared, a big triumph for the family. General Sharon showed up, too, a thundercloud in uniform. People hesitated to talk to him. “Kishote, our politicians are grasshoppers,” he snarled, when Yossi offered him a drink. “That fine boy of yours will have to fight one day in a big new war, mark my words, and we may lose all we won in 1967, if in fact we survive.”
“If Aryeh has to fight, he will.”
Kishote glimpsed Shayna Matisdorf drifting here and there, with the bar mitzvah boy hanging close to her. She looked wan. He had no chance to talk to her. Yael was the queen of the day, magnificent in one of her original cocktail dresses, smiling and laughing with everybody, except when Shayna or Eva Sonshine crossed her line of vision.
Massive headlines broke out in September all over the world. On Christian Cunningham’s hospital bed the New York Times and Washington Post shouted the news:
NASSER DIES OF HEART ATTACK;
BLOW TO PEACE EFFORTS SEEN;
NIXON CANCELS FLEET EXERCISE
PRESIDENT NASSER DIES, DEATH
ATTRIBUTED TO HEART ATTACK
Cunningham lay propped on pillows in a white gown, his face more gaunt and livid than ever. “I’m getting better,” he said to Zev Barak in a weak voice. “At least I made it, and that poor fellow didn’t.” He gestured at the newspapers with a skeletal hand. “You’ll miss him.”
“Miss Nasser?” Barak sat in a folding chair by the bed. “Why? What do you know about this Anwar Sadat? Is he that much worse?”
“Hard to say yet. Dark-skinned mustached fellow, smokes a pipe. Minor nationalist hothead. Terrorist against the British in World War II, worked with the Germans. A Nasser shadow.”
“More likely to renew the war, or less?”
“That’s a tough one.” The CIA man shook his head, wryly wrinkling his mouth. “Nasser sure snookered you on the cease-fire, didn’t he, putting those SAM-3s along the Canal! Egypt’s now got an air umbrella extending far into the Sinai, heck of an edge. Big temptation for the new fellow to go to bat and make himself a hero fast.”
“Well, so you already have a visitor!” Emily entered flourishing a green bottle, followed by General Halliday in uniform. “Well, in there, Zev. Chris, what do you think? Old Dr. Stein says a little crème de menthe might do you good.”
Cunningham’s sunken eyes lit up. “There are glasses in the bathroom.”
“Not for me, thank you,” said Barak. “I’m just going.”
“Don’t,” Halliday said. “Like to talk to you.”
“Sit down, Zev,” said Cunningham.
As they chatted about his heart attack and convalescence, Emily sat holding her father’s hand, glancing brightly at Barak. After a while Halliday extended a long leg to kick shut the door to the room. “Barak, you Israelis pull off one coup after another, don’t you? Bagging five Russian pilots!”
“What? What’s all this? Russians? An air battle?” Cunningham quavered, the glass of crème de menthe trembling in his hand. “How? When?”
“Right after you took sick, end of July,” said Halliday, “and the day after the fracas the Soviet air chief of staff came roaring down to Cairo, and Nasser quit and accepted a standstill. The Russians must have twisted his arm real hard. Right, Barak?”
With a dull stare Barak said, “General, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Halliday grimly smiled. “Both sides are blacking out the story, Chris, for obvious reasons.”
Straightening up in his droopy gown, which showed gray tufts on his chest, Cunningham said, “Then how do you know, Bud?”
“Never mind. I do. There was an Egyptian air officer right there in fighter control, filling in the Russian director about Israeli air tactics. When he saw how it was going, he advised the Russki to pull his MiGs out of the battle. The fellow said, ‘We Russians don’t run away.’ Direct quote. So five MiGs went down before they ran away.” Halliday uttered a short cold laugh. “Happiest day for the Egyptian air force in years. Those Russian fighter controllers and airmen have been treating the Egyptians like dirt, like flies.”
Barak realized that Halliday could only have gotten all this from the Egyptian air attaché, with whom he was too close for Israeli comfort.
Cunningham looked at Barak. “Come on, Zev. Talk.”
Barak turned both palms upward.
“Proper response, Barak,” said Halliday, “but please tell General Pasternak that we’re urgently interested in that combat, and will keep top secret whatever intelligence we receive.”
“At your service, of course.”
“Thanks. It’s interesting,” said Halliday as he got up, “that the Russians blame the poor quality of the Egyptian pilots for their defeats. The Egyptians blame inferior Russian planes. They both ignore one other possibility. Namely, that your fighter pilots may be pretty damn good. Nice seeing you. Coming, Em?”
She pressed Barak’s hand hard, and left. “Okay, Zev,” said Cunningham. “What about the Soviet pilots?”
Barak did not hesitate. This was a friend, and nobody was better at keeping a secret. “It’s quite true.”
“Bravo!” Cunningham sank back on his pillows, and closed his eyes. “Don’t go. I’m just a bit tired. My saying you’d miss Nasser puzzled you.”
“Baffled me.”
“Think, Zev! Think! Didn’t Nasser frighten you quarrelsome Jews into hanging together? Otherwise the factions would have torn your fragile new country apart long ago.” Cunningham opened his eyes to see how Barak was taking this. “But that’s not all. By dosing the Straits of Tiran in 1967, sending his army into the Sinai, whipping up the Arab masses into a televised blood frenzy, he made the world briefly sympathetic to Israel. And that gave you your chance in the Six-Day War.”
Barak shook his head. “Nonsense. He was bent on our destruction, period.”
“Zev, the God of history loves irony. Nasser kept you united and on your toes. When he found he couldn’t beat you, he sold himself out to the Russians, and it was the Russians who killed him. Used him to penetrate the Arab world and flank NATO from the south. Made him send his people to die by the thousands, rode him to death like an overdriven horse. What will happen with this Sadat, I don’t know. Watch out for him, and pour me some more crème de menthe, there’s a good fellow.”
Barak was walking out through the hospital lobby when a cockney streetwalker twang came from behind a post. “Hi sigh there, guv’nor, could you buy a girl a cup of coffee?” Hands on hips, Emily appeared with a sexy sway, grinning. “There’s a ghastly canteen downstairs for the staff.”
“Pleasure, Queenie. Lead on.”
“Lovely. Then I’ve got to pick up my babies in McLean. First time you’ve seen Chris since
he was felled?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“Shockingly weak, but the mind’s all there.”
In the dismal cellar canteen there were only coin dispensers of hot drinks, soft drinks, and cakes in dusty cellophane. “We can just sit and talk, too,” she said. “The coffee’s vile.”
“I’ll have some anyway.”
At a small plastic-topped table she put a hand over his. “Guess what? Old Queenie’s pregnant again. Finally!”
“Em! That’s wonderful.”
“Yes, and it had better be a boy! This is it. I’m a drying-up hag.”
“I agree.”
“Curse you. How’s Nakhama?”
Barak paused before answering, “Nakhama’s not quite herself. She has these spells, and pulls out of them. I think she’s homesick. What are the babies doing in McLean?”
“Nanny’s straightening up Chris’s house. Say, know what? Run me out there and see my girls. You never have done. Got the time?”
“By all means.”
The Belgian nanny, a severe gray-headed woman in black, was feeding the twins in the kitchen. The girls were prattling, alike as mirror images. When Emily and Barak came in they fell silent, stopped eating, and regarded him with large solemn blue eyes.
“They freeze at strangers, like rabbits at headlights,” said Emily. “Kim’s on the left, Sally on the right. I can tell them apart, but even Bud gets them wrong. Mind if I finish feeding them?”
“Of course not.”
“Go down on the terrace, dear, and I’ll join you.”
Outside, the leaves on many trees were starting to turn, some were falling, and grandiose sunset clouds streaked the sky. Barak had not been on this leaf-strewn terrace in years, and bittersweet memories assailed him: Emily as a precocious twelve-year old, bringing him out here to see the fireflies and flirting girlishly with him; Emily on that November day many years later, which the smell of the leaves brought back poignantly, when their long correspondence had flashed into unwise compelling passion …