“Not necessary, he assumes you’re going straight on to Israel. How did you make out with the bauxite people?”
“All right. If the Korean government bid comes through, Sheva will make a lot of money.”
In an altered tone, elaborately casual, she asked, “And how did you find Shayna?”
“That’s a very long story.”
“No doubt.”
Golda Meir’s car was stalled in the dense traffic and the pedestrian mob outside the cemetery. Zev Barak, sent by Prime Minister Rabin to escort her, jumped out to clear a way through the honking pileup, and at the wheel of a Hertz car he spotted Don Kishote. “Yossi!” he shouted. “Back at last? I thought you were in California!”
“I got here an hour ago,” Yossi yelled back.
“Kol ha’kavod. Pull in behind us.”
Prime Minister Rabin brought the tottery Golda to the section of seats near the grave site reserved for cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, and former Ramatkhals. In full uniform, six generals of the Yom Kippur War were carrying the big coffin on their shoulders through a tearful throng, a chaplain in the lead reciting psalms, more generals trudging before and behind the coffin. Don Kishote knew every one of these generals well. Whatever their jealousies, jostlings for power, and unseemly finger-pointing after the war, he was one of them, a brotherhood of death and fire. It was right that he had come so far and so fast to be here.
Rabin spoke over the open grave in his clear slow Hebrew. The eulogy was in part a comment on the Agranat Report, with all the commission members sitting there listening. “Dado did not deny his responsibility, but he found himself singled out to shoulder the burden. … He resigned, and bore his great pain in silence, and with rare nobility of spirit … but his heart was not up to it, and it faltered and gave out …”
Watching Golda, Kishote could see her put a handkerchief now and again to a rigid face. As he started to walk away in the crush of departing mourners, he felt a tug at his elbow. “Yossi, the Ramatkhal is astonished to see you here,” said Barak. “He wants to talk to you.”
“What about? He’s extended my leave through September.”
“Never mind. Call him. Are you really getting rich in Los Angeles?”
“Absolutely. Streets paved with gold.”
“So I’ve heard. Don Kishote stooping to pick up California gold! Sad, sad.” Barak gave him a rough embrace. “I’ve got to take care of Golda, she’s a wreck. Don’t fail to call Motta.”
Back in the Tel Aviv flat, Kishote found Yael sorting the apparel in her closet. “Hi. I didn’t remember I had so much stuff here. The moths have been at it, but I’ll be all right. It’s not for long. How did the funeral go?”
“A great tribute.”
“You missed Aryeh. He waited here until noon for you, then he had to return to his base.”
“I’ll drive up to see him.”
“He left you this note.” She handed him a folded slip. “You won’t recognize him. He has a fierce black mustache, like an Arab. He’s terribly lean. I hugged him and he’s all bones.”
“That happens the first year, and the Sayeret Matkhal course is tougher than most. I have to shower and go see the Ramatkhal.”
“Aren’t you jet-lagged? I’m staggering around in a daze.”
“I’m okay.”
“Don’t let him cut short your leave, no matter what, understand? Sheva’s counting on you for the July trip. It’s his main swing.”
“I know that very well.”
Seeing Motta Gur behind Dado’s desk jarred Don Kishote. Once Chiefs of Staff had seemed superbeings to him, but as the years passed and Ramatkhals came and went they had been shrinking to human dimensions. Dado had retained a trace of heroic stature, but Motta Gur was just Motta, with that same round open face, thick hair, and clever eyes, a high flyer one career step above Yossi’s own stratum. “Poor Dado,” were the Ramatkhal’s first words as they shook hands. “A fitting funeral. Honored him as he deserved. Sit down. So, Yossi. You’re doing well in Los Angeles, are you?”
“No complaints, Motta.”
“Dado meant to make you deputy chief of operations, you know.”
“Yes, then the Agranat axe fell on him.”
The Ramatkhal gave him a long calculating look. “You’re not due back until September, are you? It happens — in confidence — that the slot’s opening up right now.”
Yossi was taken aback. The present deputy chief was an old friend, and he had no idea what the problem might be. But asking questions was inadmissible. “Sir, several brigade generals are ahead of me for such a post.”
“Not if I decide otherwise.” The Ramatkhal laughed. “I still remember you coming up through the trapdoor of the Rockefeller Museum roof, all bandaged and bloody, in ’67. And I know how you performed in Sinai.”
“I’m so out of touch, sir —”
“You’d be back in touch in a week. Your fresh outlook might be a plus. It’s a different army now, Yossi, a huge machine. We’re still digesting the war, still reorganizing. But for this job you must come back now. I can’t wait until October. It’s what Dado wanted for you, remember. Talk to Yael, and let me know this week. She’s in Los Angeles?”
“No, she came with me.”
“Give her my warm regards.”
Driving to Aryeh’s camp in the north, Yossi mulled over the proposal, much less dazzled than he had been by Dado’s original offer. It meant a sudden return to the small space of Israel, and the smaller space of Zahal. He was planning to come back, he coveted the vine leaf of an aluf, a major general, and Dado’s death had put period to the sordid aftermath of the war. But with the commission Leavis was paying him, a small percentage of each deal they made on the trips, he was accumulating a surprising amount of money, and he had gotten used to the pleasures of what Israelis wistfully called “the big world”; not excluding, as Shayna had surmised, the ladies in far-off places. An abrupt cutoff of all that?
The paratroopers’ camp where Yossi had once been based had a new concrete command building, a new mess hall; and the area of barracks, formerly a small clearing in the woods, now stretched out of sight. But all army camps, small or big, looked much the same: boyish and girlish soldiers hurrying about the paths, signs hopelessly urging smartness of uniform, unit banners and Israeli flags flapping in the dusty wind. The base commander greeted him with a glad hail. “Yossi, you’ll have dinner with me.”
“Depends, Yigal. Where’s Aryeh’s outfit?”
“Up on the Golan. Big combined armor and air exercise starts before dawn.”
“Lend me a jeep, then. My time’s short, and my Hertz car is too dainty for the Golan.”
“No problem.”
It was a rough long climb from the Daughters of Jacob bridge up the escarpment, and night was falling when he saw a line of Centurions silhouetted on a ridge. Taking a jolting shortcut over stony fields, he passed a crowd of soldiers sitting on a hillside in the cold starry night. Inside the operations tent, the battalion commander and his staff were conning a map under one glaring lamp. The commander jumped up and saluted. “This is very fortunate, General Nitzan. We’re having a bonfire ceremony in memory of Dado, with army singers. I was going to speak, but you served with him. Will you talk, sir? Just a few words, whatever comes to mind? Will you honor us?”
Yossi was tempted, his heart and mind were full of Dado thoughts, but he recalled old times when big brass had visited sons in the field; so he declined, knowing Aryeh would much prefer a low-profile visit. He returned to the soldiers, hundreds of them, ranged on the hill that sloped down to an unlit pile of wood. A soldier heaping on more wood called to him, “Abba! Abba, don’t you recognize me?”
A torch was thrown just then, and the pile flared up in a cloud of red fire and black smoke. The bespectacled mustached soldier, taller than himself, came loping to him and hugged him. “How are you, Abba?”
“I’m fine. Why are you croaking like a frog?”
“Caught a
cold, running fifteen kilometers in the rain.”
As the bonfire blazed high the troops started to sing, and Don Kishote felt a tug back to his soldiering days. The rough male voices, the firelit young faces, the fragrance of Golan herbage, the myriad stars one never saw over Los Angeles, or for that matter over Tel Aviv, the heat of the bonfire on his face, his son beside him in uniform, a hard-bodied recruit of Sayeret Matkhal: all this rekindled in Don Kishote’s spirit a spark dimmed by time and circumstance — love for Zahal, love for the Jewish people, love for the freckle on the globe called Israel.
The troupe of singers, two girls and two boys, mounted a low platform near the roaring bonfire, and performed old army songs to the wail of an accordion — “The Unknown Platoon,” “The Paratrooper Song,” “To the North with Love” — all with the recurring sad undertone about the fallen. The soldiers joined in the refrains, Aryeh too in a hoarse baritone. They had not yet had the experiences, thought Kishote, but at least they knew the songs. The performers began an air force song that tore at him, with words too poignant to give pleasure; “We Must Play On,” likening the air force to a harp of many strings which kept breaking.
And we play on with one string less
And again one string less
And some strings that break will not be mended
And some are mended and again they sound
And this song can never stop
And we’re forced to play on, play on —
Aryeh looked at his father, who had a hand over his eyes. “Abba? You okay?”
“Dov Luria,” muttered Don Kishote. “Dado.”
“I know,” said his son, and Kishote felt a muscular arm tighten around his shoulders.
Yael was awakened by Kishote, talking on the telephone in the hallway. Where was she? What day was it? Memory returned of the impulsive air trip and her jet-lag collapse into bed. Pulling aside heavy drapes, she winced at the blinding morning sun, and looked at her watch.
“Sheva Leavis sends you his love,” said Kishote as she came into the kitchen.
“I swear, Yossi, I must have slept twelve hours. Is that who you were on the phone with?”
“Yes. I told him I wasn’t coming back to Los Angeles.”
“You didn’t!”
“He was decent about it. Said he half expected it, and we’d stay in touch.”
Yael rubbed her eyes. “I need coffee and a bath. Have you been up long, or what? You look bleary.”
“I went to see Aryeh on the Golan. We talked into the small hours. I just got back.”
“Yossi, you must sleep, or you’ll be sick.”
“You’re right.”
When she came out of the bath in the best silk robe she could find, he was on the bed in pajamas. “I’ll sleep two hours,” he said, setting the alarm, “then I have to see Motta again.”
She sat down at the foot of the bed. “Are you being fair to Sheva Leavis?”
“He assured me he understood.”
“He did? How did you explain yourself?”
Kishote said he told Leavis of his feelings at seeing the generals carry Dado’s casket, his sense of being back home again, the challenge of the post he was offered. She fixed him with a knowing eye. “All right, that’s what you told Sheva. Now, what happened on the Golan? What went on with you and Aryeh?”
That his mind had been made up by some old army songs, the warmth of a bonfire in the cold Golan night, and an embrace by his son in uniform, was incommunicable, though it was more or less the truth. He recounted Aryeh’s tales of hardships and triumphs in the Sayeret training. “I want to be here with him while he goes through all that. A lone soldier has a hard time of it.”
“Yossi, he’s gotten very close to Dzecki Barkowe. Every weekend that he’s off, he stays with the Barkowes in Haifa. He even has his own room. Galia Barak comes and visits Dzecki, and they have a nice young group. He’s quite happy there.”
“So he told me, but I’m staying.”
Her skeptical look softened. “You’ll stay because you’ll stay, right?”
“More or less. I have one real regret, Yael, I’ll say that.”
“Which is what?” Her tone became dulcet. An affectionate word for her at last? Regret that she had to travel back alone, or even that this might be the real parting?
“The money. Leavis has been generous, but —”
“Stop right there,” she broke in briskly. “Half a percent wasn’t generous. Either you were worthless, or you were worth much more. He was trying you out. If you come into the business after the army, he’ll give you two percent, I know that.” Kishote only shrugged. “Anyway, since when is money so very important to you?”
“I’m interested in a land deal.”
“Land deal? You? Where?”
“Suburbs of Melbourne.”
“Australia?” He mutely nodded. A thought struck her. “Ooah, has Shayna Berkowitz gone into real estate?”
“Don’t be silly. Shayna? She’s a brilliant mathematician, but in business hopeless. She’s already lost what little her husband left her.”
He described the man in the kangaroo leather business, who required a partner with capital for land development. He had given Mendel to understand, before he left Melbourne, that if the Australian could induce his wife to let Shayna adopt the unhappy Reuven and bring him back to Israel, he, Kishote, would be inclined to invest with a man of such good heart.
“Why, Yossi,” Yael said, amused despite her sore spirit, “that’s a real business maneuver. Something I might do myself. Did he bite?”
“I’m not sure, but he wasn’t outraged.”
“Look, get a bank loan for the rest, that’s all. Sheva will go on the note, and you can carry the interest.”
Kishote shook his head. “Sheva doesn’t go on notes.”
“Right, right, it’s an absolute rule of his. Well, then I’ll lend you the money.”
“What’s this, Yael? I’m not taking money from you, of all people! Why should you lend me money?”
“Because I have it.”
“That’s no reason.”
“All right, because I love you.”
That silenced him. After a while he spoke low. “Hamoodah, look here —”
She overrode him. “You don’t believe me? How many years were we together? Didn’t I have Aryeh? And Eva? Listen, no use talking, it’s all past and dead, and you’re just being proud and stupid about a loan from me. That I do understand.” She stood up. “Get some sleep, Kishote.”
He caught her swinging hand. “That kangaroo guy would just piss away all your money, Yael.”
“So what? You’d be buying Reuven for Shayna, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that what you want? Besides, who can tell about land deals? Even in Australia, land is good.”
“So are you.”
He pulled her down for a kiss. They were both in nightclothes; and Yael, returning the kiss, rather wondered what might happen next. Another kiss, and another. He let her go, wryly smiling. “Well, if that’s what you call love, I love you, too. But when you and Max Roweh are kissing, don’t go thinking so hard. He can think for both of you.”
She punched him. “Never you mind about Max Roweh.”
“Yael, thanks.”
“Thank me by never telling Shayna about my money. I’ll pull the drapes. Sleep.”
Two months later Yossi and Shayna were married by the Ezrakh in the courtyard of his little Jerusalem yeshiva, under a drooping velvet canopy lifted on rods by four skullcapped yeshiva boys. Her face heavily veiled in white, her dress a plain dark blue frock, Shayna held Reuven by a hand. Yossi wore only a sport shirt and slacks, for the June night was very warm, the moonless sky ablaze with stars. There were no guests but the few yeshiva students who made up the minyan and — very strangely — air force major general Benny Luria, dressed like Kishote, with a scraggly new blond beard.
This very quiet wedding was not Kishote’s idea, he had planned an exuberant celebration with all their frie
nds at a modest hotel. But Shayna was self-conscious about marrying a man fresh out of divorce court, and she felt that a quick remarriage upon setting foot in Israel somehow affronted the memory of Michael, to whose grave she had brought Reuven the day they arrived. Yossi had talked her into the immediate wedding, but the compromise was this very private ceremony.
The Ezrakh was addressing the couple in Yiddish when into the courtyard bounded a tall dusty black-mustached soldier, causing a buzz among the yeshiva boys. He strode to the canopy and grasped Kishote’s hand. “Slikha, Rebi Mori [Pardon, Master and Teacher],” he said to the Ezrakh, who with a gentle smile switched smoothly in his weak but clear voice to Aryeh’s colloquial Hebrew, for few in the younger generation understood Yiddish. Yossi could not imagine how Aryeh had managed this. Last he knew the Sayeret Matkhal was out on a supersecret mission, which probably meant in enemy territory, and release from such an exercise was unthinkable. By way of thanking his son he squeezed the callused hand, and got a powerful squeeze in return.
With his hand in his son’s heartwarming grip, Yossi’s mind wandered from the Ezrakh’s words. He was getting into something, with this strong-willed little woman beside him! She had already given away all the dishes in his flat, made the silver kosher by boiling it, and brought from Haifa her bedroom furniture to replace Yael’s. She had informed him, moreover, of some surprising marriage-bed rules they would be living by. All in all, when the moment came to slip the ring on her finger, it felt a bit like a parachute jump. Kfotze, Kishote! But the look she gave him, lifting the veil to take a sip of wine from the Ezrakh’s old goblet, shook him with its deep sweetness and answered all qualms.
He stamped the glass to bits, the yeshiva boys broke into dance and song in a ring around them, and Aryeh snatched Reuven up in his arms and also cavorted, a big incongruous figure in green uniform amid the yarmulkes and the flying small prayer shawls. Benny Luria too held hands with the students and danced. Yossi had heard rumors that he was on medical leave with psychological problems, and he gathered that the aviator was studying the Talmud here, but why? A puzzle.
When the dance thed down Aryeh told his father that the Sayeret commander, Lieutenant Colonel Netanyahu, had released him when one phase of the exercise ended, but only for twenty-four hours. “I have to start back right away, and don’t ask me where, but I wasn’t going to miss Abba marrying Aunt Shayna.”