The Israel news was the ebullient other side of the coin. More details of victorious battles, stories of heroism, casualty figures low though sad enough: fewer than two hundred killed and missing, where the Egyptians were admitting many thousands. The broadcast included a recorded interview with Colonel Yoffe by a correspondent in Sharm el Sheikh. When Yoffe mentioned the “heroic” efforts of his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Barak, she turned to hug him and found herself pulled down on the bed.
“No! No, I say. You have to rest. Time enough for that. No.” Unsuccessful protest, slight struggle, a frantic whisper: “Now look, this pillow is wet, and it’s blood. I told you.”
“The scab pulled loose. It’s nothing.”
“Come, I’ll fix it up and change the pillowcase.” She turned on a dim bed lamp. “God, it’s only half-past seven. What a scandal. Suppose Michael came home and found us like this? Hurry.” She dressed his head wound again, firmly put him to bed, and bent over to kiss him. “Welcome home, hero. Sleep well.”
Next morning when he came blinking into the strong sunlight of the kitchen in a bathrobe, his wife was putting away dishes. A King David Hotel envelope lay on the kitchen table. “What’s this, now?”
“Sorry, I forgot it. A girl brought it yesterday afternoon. American archaeologist’s daughter. A message from her father.”
“Archaeologist?” He was opening the letter.
“I think so. We talked French, and didn’t get far.”
Nov. 6, ’56
Hi, Wolf Lightning—
Am scrawling this over tea and cake at the King David. Lieutenant Colonel Pasternak has a sealed letter that my father sent to me in Paris, instructing me to fly here and deliver it to him, hand to hand. Most of Wednesday I’ll be at the Ramat Rakhel excavation that Dad helps to finance. Wait-listed on a plane back to Paris Thursday. Pasternak said you’re somewhere in Sinai but I intend to see your wife and kids anyway. Amazing victory of Israel, however my father is very negative about it. Sorry as hell to miss you, but everything always happens for the best, my mother likes to say. Possibly.
Emily C.
Over the splutter of frying eggs Nakhama said, “Sam Pasternak called. He told me to let you sleep, but you’re to call him once you’re up.”
“I’ll eat first.”
“That girl talked to Noah, and said his English is merveilleux. Nice girl. Is she an archaeologist, too?”
“I don’t know. I met her father in America.”
In the gun battles for Sharm el Sheikh, Barak’s aberrant thoughts of Emily Cunningham had quite faded. A letter from Cunningham, brought hand to hand from Paris! Worrisome. The bold choppy note made him wonder at those peculiar musings about the girl on the long Sinai trek; product of boredom, fatigue, and stress, he thought, a kind of meaningless wakeful dreaming. Nakhama glowed as she put his breakfast before him. He had seen that radiance often when he returned from battle or a long absence. She wore a plain blue housedress, and her hair was a rich careless pile on her head. He said, “You look wonderful.”
She kissed his forehead below the bandage. “Eat, and call Sam. He sounded concerned, I don’t know why. The news is all good, except the British and French are stopping their troops, and the UN may occupy the Canal Zone. It’s all up in the air.”
20
Issur Yikhud
Golda Meir chain-lit a cigarette as she read Cunningham’s two-page letter straight through without comment, now and then glancing over her desk from Pasternak to Barak, who had never been in her office before. It was a bare little workplace for a Foreign Minister, its walls unadorned except for pictures of Ben Gurion and the gaunt President Ben Zvi, both in open-collared shirts, and a large map of Israel with the occupied Sinai hatched in red ink. Smoke drifted out of the small half-open window, and an ashtray heaped with butts sent up a stale smell. “Tell me again who this man is.” She took off her glasses and dropped the letter on the desk.
“A friend,” said Pasternak. “High in the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“In the CIA? A serious person? Then what is all this unprofessional hugger-mugger” (Golda used the English words), “sending a personal letter to his daughter in Paris by diplomatic pouch, for her to bring here by plane during a war?”
“I guess he didn’t trust cable or telephone, Madame Minister, or the pouch direct to Tel Aviv.” Pasternak shrugged. “Mr. Cunningham’s somewhat meshuga on security. Like others in intelligence.”
“And a lot meshuga on the Russians,” said Golda, with a dismissive wave at the letter. “I was born in Kiev, you know. I can assure you a Russian puts on his pants one leg at a time. A Russian is not ten feet tall. You walk in Moscow, you see a lot of short Russians. Some Americans have strange ideas about Russians.” She peered at Barak, who sat blank-faced. Pasternak had brought him along to give his view of Cunningham and of the letter if asked. “You know this man, Barak?”
“Not as well as Sam does.”
“What do you think of him?”
“Strange person, keen mind, and extremely well connected.”
Wrinkling her large bold nose, Golda picked up the letter and read out the opening sentences in a sardonic tone.
Dear Sam:
I write this during a sleepless night. I’m confoundedly worried. Your victory is militarily admirable, but politically it can prove suicidal. The American shield is down. All Israeli policy decisions must turn on that fact. With her American background, your foreign minister should understand this. The intelligence from Russia is appalling, and we’re taking it very, very seriously here…
“American shield?” Golda almost snorted. “What American shield? What have the Americans done for us in this business but make trouble?” She tossed the letter to the desk as the two men looked at each other. “Go ahead, Sam, explain to me about the American shield.”
Pasternak made an inviting gesture at Barak, which was also an order. “Zev’s heard Christian Cunningham expound. Quite recently, in fact.”
The half-closed eyes in her strong face shifted to Barak with cold challenge.
“In a sentence or two, Foreign Minister,” Barak said, “I can’t explain.”
“But what this man says makes sense to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s hear it, and take your time.”
Why had Sam put him on this spot? Here was no relationship such as Barak had with the Ben Gurions, to whom he could speak almost like one of the family. He had to talk geopolitics on the spur of the moment with this woman who made foreign policy—insofar as anyone did besides David Ben Gurion—and who had a formidable reputation for not suffering fools. What could he say that she did not already know? This had to be a probe in the Old Man’s style.
He summoned up nerve, and began. The “shield” obviously meant, he said, the friendship of a great power. In Cunningham’s way of thinking, Zionism had “slipped into history”—Golda Meir worked her dark eyebrows at the phrase—in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, behind the shield of England. That shield had lasted until the Arab uprisings and the UN partition vote, which had gone through behind the American shield, specifically President Truman’s intervention. Otherwise Israel would not exist. The threat to Israel’s survival came less from the Arabs than from a great power’s policy of penetrating the Arab world by means of an unfriendly, sometimes menacing stance toward Zionism. Russia was now playing that gambit in the old Great Game, and the American shield alone had been restraining it. But with Eisenhower furious at Israel, its political predicament, always precarious, had overnight turned extremely grave. That, said Barak, was the Cunningham view behind the letter.
“Well said, Zev. Chris also makes two material points there,” added Pasternak, jabbing two fingers toward the letter. “Point one. Dulles has gone into the hospital with cancer, so Eisenhower is directing policy himself. He’s not a diplomat but a military man used to ruthless quick action. Point two. The State Department has let it be known through channels that a Russian a
ttack on England or France will bring American retaliation.” Pasternak paused. “And Chris emphasizes, Madame Minister, that Israel is omitted from that warning.”
“Yes. ‘Israel is not—repeat not—mentioned.’ I saw that.” Golda Meir slid the letter across the desk to Pasternak. “Well, now I understand you both, and I couldn’t disagree more. Your CIA friend is saying we should tremble at the Russian threat, obey the UN, and withdraw from Sinai forthwith. Not a chance. Rotten advice.” She turned on Barak. “Shields, shmields! What’s the matter with you? That makes sense? What shields? We Zionists have done it ourselves! We’ve built up and fought for and won this land, and that’s why Israel exists! When a great power befriends us, it’s to serve its own interest in the region, nothing more. For the British we were a buffer against the French, until the Arabs made it too hot for them to stay here. As for the Americans, what kind of a shield have they been, embargoing arms to us while Russia armed Egypt? If not for the French, whose interest is to throw out Nasser, he could be overrunning us now, instead of the other way around. Then would he withdraw? Hah, Sam?”
“Not very likely, Madame Minister.”
“No, not very. So let the Egyptians show peaceful intentions and start talking to us! If we back out of Sinai, shaking in our shoes, will that make them talk peace? What a joke! And as for the Russians, well, they’re a long way from here, and they’re very busy at the moment crushing Hungarian women and children under their tanks.” She stood up, smoothing her dress and glancing at her watch. “Ben Gurion will be speaking on the radio in an hour. I advise you to listen to him. I’m going to see him now.”
“Did you expect anything different?” Barak asked Pasternak as they emerged into a cloudy drizzly afternoon.
“Hardly, but Chris’s letter alarmed me, and I thought she should see it. She has her mind made up, so that’s that. Or I should say the Old Man has his mind made up. Same thing, and we may be in for a disaster.”
***
Walking past the King David Hotel after going to the bank, Barak remembered that Emily Cunningham was leaving today, probably had already left. Go in and check? Why bother? Time to get home for B.G.’s broadcast. But on an irrational impulse he did go in, and there she was at the reception desk handing in her key, in a squirrel coat and a gray shawl, with a blue leather bag at her feet. He felt an instant stir of delight. When she saw him her eyes popped comically, and her mouth fell open in an audible gasp. “You! You’re supposed to be in Sharm el Sheikh! I saw your picture in the paper!”
“You’re leaving now?”
“I have hours, but I hate sitting all packed in a hotel room.”
“Does your room have a radio?”
“Yes.”
“Take back your key.” He picked up her bag. “The Prime Minister will speak soon. I want to hear him. It will be in Hebrew, and I’ll give you the gist. Okay?”
“Why, sure.”
She kept stealing saucer-eyed looks at him as they walked up the broad staircase to the second floor in silence. In the narrow room she waved at the window. “Depressing view. All that barbed wire, and the Old City beyond. More depressing when the sun shines on the walls. Then Old Jerusalem looks like Paradise Lost.”
The small radio whistled, squealed, and gargled static until he got it tuned to rapid talk in Hebrew. “He’ll be on in a few minutes,” Barak said.
She threw the coat and shawl on a chair. “You know that I visited your family?”
“Yes.”
“Your injuries aren’t serious, are they?”
“The bandages will be off in a week.”
She made an awkward gesture with a stiff arm and a slightly bent elbow. “You still move your arm that funny way. Are you aware of it? I noticed it in Paris.”
“Nobody else notices it. Or at least comments on it.”
She smiled the grown-up smile that satirically creased and dimpled her girlish face, and he began to remember why he had found her piquant. “Terrible manners.”
“How’s André?”
“Oh, all right.” The smile disappeared. “Look, can you tell me—give me a hint—what was in my father’s sealed letter? A weird business! Are things here that serious?”
“We’re not easily frightened. We can’t afford to be. We’ve won a big victory, that much is sure. Sit down, stop scampering around like a cat in a cage.” He gestured at the radio. “Sorry if this Hebrew bores you. It’s political comment. It bores me too.”
She flopped on the bed, propped on her elbows. “My God, you have a beautiful wife and fantastic children. The baby girl is lovely, and that boy Noah will be a leader.”
“Nakhama said you’re a nice girl.”
“Ha!” An explosive sound. “Did she? We could hardly communicate. Is that her name—Nakkama? Sounds American Indian. Daughter of the Moon, or something. Like Wolf Lightning. Maybe the Indians really are the Lost Tribe of Israel.”
“You’re babbling, Emily. And it’s Nakhama.”
“What does that mean, NaKHama?” She forced the guttural thickly.
“Consolation.”
A shadow passed over the girl’s face. “I may as well tell you, or warn you, that I have occult powers. Don’t laugh, I very rarely use them, but when I do they scare me, the way they work. I willed you through the revolving door of the hotel just now. I did! I said to myself, ‘I know he’s in Sharm el Sheikh, all the same I will him to come into this lobby right now.’ And you came. Do you believe me? I’ll swear it on the Bible. There’s a Gideon Bible there in that drawer, and I’m a believer.”
“Look, our bank is just down the street, and Nakhama needed cash. Did you will all that?”
“Don’t make fun of me. I tell you, I’ve done this before. Once in college I needed twenty dollars to get out of a terrible money scrape, a horrible disgrace. I willed to find a twenty-dollar bill, and I found it in an old purse I’d been meaning to throw out. I’ve done it other times, too.”
“Suppose I hadn’t walked in? What about those occult powers?”
“Ah, but you did!”
On the radio, a burst of harsh, different Hebrew. “There he is.” Barak fine-tuned the dial.
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Not exactly.”
“Pretty?” She kicked her legs, which were lean but well-shaped.
“Shut up, I want to hear him.”
“God in heaven, Wolf Lightning, I’m glad you came through that revolving door.”
“All right.”
“You know, you wouldn’t tell me to shut up if you didn’t feel at home with me. Interesting.”
Ben Gurion was only getting started, but Barak did not want to miss a word. He went and put a hand over her mouth. She nipped it with sharp teeth. “Sorry, I’ll be quiet.”
He shook his head at the coltish girl, and pushed aside her squirrel coat to sit in the armchair. Emily walked to the window and stood with her arms folded, looking out at the Old City. She was dressed in the same sweater and skirt she had worn in Paris. As the voice rushed on, strident and emphatic enough to make the radio rattle, Barak sank lower in the chair, feeling burdened and weary.
For it was a resounding victory speech, rigid, high-spirited, uncompromising, the same attitude Golda Meir had taken at the meeting. The old armistice agreements were dead. Egypt’s acts of war had killed them. The former armistice lines no longer existed. As for the proposed UN force in the disputed areas, Israel would allow no foreign troops on her soil, or on any territory she occupied! (When Barak heard these words, spoken with defiance, he cringed and put a hand to his forehead. “What?” Emily whispered. “What did he just say? It’s pure Chinese to me.” Barak put a finger to his lips.) When Egypt and the other neighbors showed a disposition to discuss peace, they would find Israel surprisingly forthcoming. Meantime Israel could rely on her soldiers, as she had amply illustrated, to rebuff all intruders. The vast buildup of fortifications and arms caches they had uncovered in Sinai proved that Israel had acted in s
elf-defense just in the nick of time.
“You didn’t like the speech,” she said as he turned off the radio.
“Your father won’t like it. Here’s what Ben Gurion said, in a few words.” Barak summarized the talk, and his gloom deepened as he did so, though the presence of the girl was both distracting and charming.
“You’re probably right, Chris will be appalled. But I’m an awful ignoramus about politics.”
“How are you doing with your thesis on Lamartine, Emily?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.”
“I see.” An awkward pause. “Well, I guess I’ll be on my way. Thank you for the use of the radio.”
“I don’t have to leave just yet.”
“I have things to do.”
“Okay.” She shrugged on her coat and tied the shawl over her hair. “You’re right. If I kiss you once I’m lost, so let’s get out of here.”
As they faced each other, well apart, the twenty-year-old American girl in the squirrel coat and the bandaged Israeli officer in his early thirties, Barak incongruously thought of a religious rule he and Michael had argued a lot about in their teens, issur yikhud. Strict Talmudic law prohibited a male person and a female—down to a ridiculously low age for both of them—who weren’t related, to be alone together in a closed room. Zev had maintained that in modern times issur yikhud was nonsensical and unenforceable. Michael, a sober yeshiva student, had replied that it was unenforceable, except by willpower; nonsensical, not at all. Barak had never paid the slightest attention to it, of course, much to his gain in enjoyment over the years. Until this moment, it had not crossed his mind again.
“Foolishness,” he said. He took her by the forearms and gave her a casual kiss on the mouth. “Okay? Big deal?”
“That was inevitable,” she said, “since the night of the fireflies. You did it, not I. Remember that. You’ll have to, one day.”
She darted through the door, grabbing her bag as she left. He went out after her. “Let me carry that.”
“Oh, please. Don’t be so damn polite. It’s ridiculous.” In the hallway she turned her face to him. It was streaming tears.