The Hope

by Herman Wouk

  “He really hasn’t.”

  “Well, now he can sleep—we hope.”

  Actually, as he gave the briefing at the table map, Sam Pasternak was feeling pretty good. His eyes looked glassy in deep dark hollows, and Yael feared he would fall asleep as he stood and topple over. But on hearing that the Old Man was coming with his top ministers, he had managed a reviving shower and shave, and a change of uniform. He had been through several slumps of killing fatigue, had caught a second and a third wind, and now the adrenaline of victory was keeping him going.

  “Not one inch!” Ben Gurion was saying when Yael came to the table map, beckoned there by Pasternak. “Not one inch backwards!” A stiff finger was thrusting at the ministers, Golda among them, and their aides. The Prime Minister’s jaw stuck out, his mouth was a black line of resolve, and his eyes flashed anger, real or assumed. He looked in the best of health, rested and of good color. Pasternak whispered to Yael that the French liaison officer was coming, and that she should stand by to translate.

  A minister with bushy gray hair ventured mildly, “Ben Gurion, the cease-fire and withdrawal vote went eighty-five to one against us, and there’s serious talk of expelling us from the United Nations.”

  “There’s talk!” With a broad gesture at the situation map, and a sudden change to merry affability, Ben Gurion said, “Why are you all so worried? While they talk and talk in New York, and we are sitting in Sinai, things are not so bad.”

  “And Bulganin’s letter?” Golda’s interjection was almost belligerent. “What about that letter?”

  “Golda, I’m not a Jew with trembling knees. That I think you know. He wrote letters to the British and the French, too. They are going right on with the landings, aren’t they? They’re not frightened, either.”

  “He didn’t write them in the same terms: ‘…calls into question the very existence of Israel as a state….’ That is hard language.” Golda waved her cigarette like an admonishing finger. “That’s a military threat.”

  “And the intelligence from Moscow?” the bushy-haired minister put in. “‘If Israel doesn’t withdraw, the Soviet Union is preparing to squash it in the next twenty-four hours’?”

  “You must learn to look at a map, Pinkhas.” Ben Gurion pointed to a wall map of Europe and the Middle East. “That is only scare talk, planted propaganda. Twenty-four hours! It’s not physically possible. The Russians are trying to cover their murderous actions in Hungary. And to grab credit for stopping the Suez campaign, in case Eisenhower does stop it.”

  “Prime Minister, Colonel Simon is here,” said Pasternak, at a sign from the duty officer at a distant desk.

  “Well, the briefing is finished. Golda, you will stay.” To the others he said as they left that they would meet again in the evening. “So, Golda,” he remarked, “now you will hear all about omelettes and telescopes.” He chuckled at her mystified reaction.

  The French officer came striding in, erect as a large paunch would permit, his much-bemedalled uniform spic and span, a fine martial figure in contrast to the rumpled and mostly unshaven Israeli officers in the situation room, some of them wearing old sweaters. “Monsieur le Ministre,” he began without any other greeting, “vous nous avez faites tous des dindons.”

  Yael translated. “Mr. Prime Minister, you have made turkeys of all of us.” Ben Gurion raised heavy eyebrows at her. She shrugged and added in Hebrew, “It’s exactly what he said, Prime Minister. Dindons. That’s French for hodim [turkeys].”

  “Turkeys?” Ben Gurion addressed Simon directly. “How turkeys, Monsieur Colonel?”

  Maintaining the aggrieved tone, Colonel Simon declared that Israel had let down its allies by accepting the General Assembly’s cease-fire resolution, when the landings were only beginning. Egypt of course had jumped at both cease-fire votes, in the Security Council and in the General Assembly. What justification was there now for continuing the assault, which was supposed to “restore peace”? Malheureusement—the colonel repeated the word with extravagant gestures—malheureusement there was no veto in the General Assembly. The landings were proceeding “brilliantly,” but they might have to be aborted and the scoundrel Nasser would survive, unless Israel reconsidered and continued to fight.

  “But fight for what, Colonel?” Ben Gurion pointed to the table. “Your governments instructed us to halt ten miles short of the Canal Zone. Well, we are there, all along the line. In the south we are in Sharm el Sheikh. What now? Shall we march on Cairo?”

  As Yael translated the colonel reluctantly smiled. “Monsieur le Premier, of course I admire your successes, but I am reporting the grave dilemma of my government.”

  “But consider my dilemma,” said Ben Gurion, sounding a shade pathetic. “The Americans have threatened us with ruinous economic sanctions. The Russians have actually threatened to annihilate us as a state! Haven’t they, Golda?”

  “We have received a terrifying letter from Bulganin, Colonel,” she said. “Absolutely frightening.”

  “You see, Colonel? We are a very little country, squeezed by mighty superpowers. Thanks to gallant France, and only thanks to France, our soldiers have been able to clean out the terrorists in Sinai, and free our passage to the sea. That we will always remember.”

  “I shall report those gratifying words to my government. However, Monsieur le Ministre—”

  “Colonel, only the folly of England insisting on delaying the landings for a week—to maintain an empty pretext that the whole world now laughs at—has created your dilemma. Surely you know that. By the French plan you would have landed six days ago. You would now hold the Canal, and Nasser would be a fugitive in Switzerland.”

  “Hélas, how true,” said Simon. “Once more England has made a turkey of France. It is 1940 all over again. The betrayal at Dunkerque! You cannot then reconsider?”

  Ben Gurion spread both palms upward and looked at Golda, who sadly shook her head. “I am helpless to do that, Colonel.”

  “Monsieur Le Ministre, I have done my duty as an emissary. I shall at once report your most regrettable response.” The French colonel drew himself very erect, pulling in his stomach. “I now speak as an individual and a soldier. Yes, France has aided you, but the lightning conquest of Sinai is Israel’s glory. With this hundred-hour victory, you enter modern history, no longer a nation of victims but of warriors. I salute you, and I salute the Jews.” He did salute, very formally.

  Ben Gurion too drew himself up, pulled in his own paunch insofar as he could, and returned the salute. “I pledge Israel’s eternal gratitude to France. For your ally, England, I feel only sorrow. Whatever else has happened, the British made possible the Jewish State, and we Jews will never forget that.”

  “Ah, the British.” Colonel Simon shrugged. “Hélas, I fear the British lion exits from history a turkey. C’est la guerre.” With a brief bow to Golda Meir, he marched out, pausing to blink in surprise at a filthy bandaged figure entering by the same wide door.

  “There’s Zev Barak now,” said Sam Pasternak.

  “Good.” Ben Gurion turned to Golda Meir. His face hardened into deep worry lines, and his voice was harsh. “The Bulganin letter is an insulting and very dangerous communication. What do we do?”

  “I know the man. In Moscow I met him often.” Golda Meyerson had been Israel’s first ambassador to Moscow, where she had angered the Russians by attracting crowds of singing cheering Jews. “He is just another Soviet politician. They are all alike. They only understand when they get as good as they give. I’m going to draft an answer as rough as his letter.”

  “Be as rough as you please, and I’ll sign it. Just don’t dare him to squash us. I don’t think we can beat the Red Army.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind.” She said to Yael as she left, “Thanks for the pin.”

  “What pin?” Ben Gurion asked Yael, with his usual insatiable inquisitiveness. “You gave Golda a pin? What did she want with a pin?”

  Yael was still groping for a reply—“To hold up her blo
omers” seemed not quite the thing to say to Ben Gurion—when Zev Barak approached, greasy and sandy from head to foot. “The Piper Cub came with your message, Prime Minister, and I got on it as I was. My apologies.”

  “That’s Sharm el Sheikh dirt,” said Ben Gurion. “Beautiful dirt. Those bandages, nothing serious?”

  “No, I’m all right. When I left, we were spiking the cannons. Even if the Egyptians come back tomorrow, they’ll be a long time closing the straits again.”

  “They’ll never come back. Never!” Out came the Ben Gurion jaw, and the brows heavily lowered. “Sharm el Sheikh is just a rocky point on the Straits of Tiran. Historically it’s all Yotvat. The main island in the straits was an ancient Jewish settlement, and we were there two thousand years ago, it’s all described in Procopius, I showed it to you. We have returned. There we stay. That is unchangeable.”

  He fired rapid questions at Barak about the breakthrough battle, the demeanor of the Egyptian commanders, the handling of prisoners, the condition of the Israeli troops, the level of supplies, and the restoration of the ruined fortress as a defensive position. “Zev, I talked with Moshe this morning. Avraham Yoffe is recommending you for a tziyun l’shvakh [distinguished citation].”

  “Why me? He’s the one. Who else would the men have followed all the way through that Gehenna?”

  “You saw Moshe at Sharm?”

  “Yes, he came in with Raful.”

  “He was everywhere but here, Sam, right?” The Prime Minister smiled at Pasternak. “All through the war.”

  There was no response but an unfocussed stare. Yael touched Pasternak’s arm, and he started. “What? Sorry,” he mumbled, blinking.

  “Sam, I order you to rest!” Ben Gurion exclaimed. “I know what you’ve done here. Moshe Dayan himself told me, ‘What we messed up in the morning in the field, Sammy straightened out at headquarters in the afternoon.’ You’ve been outstanding.”

  “I never heard a gun go off,” Pasternak muttered.

  Ben Gurion took his arm. “You’ll come with me in my car.”

  “Tell Uri,” said Pasternak to Yael, as the Prime Minister led him away.

  “I want to telephone Nakhama,” Barak said to her.

  “Use Sam’s office.”

  When Yael came into the office Barak was on the phone, laughing. The jubilant tones of his wife rattled in the receiver. “Well,” he said as he hung up, “she’s pleasantly surprised that I’m back already.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Your friend Kishote, by the way, is a big hero. You’ve heard about it?”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  At the quick edgy words, Barak gave her a quizzical glance. “Your travelling companion, then. Whatever you please. He’ll be up for a commendation, without a doubt.”

  “Why, what did he do?”

  The feat had reached Barak embellished in the way of battlefield stories. Don Kishote’s leap had become a mountain goat bound beyond human strength, he had wiped out an entire platoon of Egyptians and—a touch of pure fantasy—he had climbed down to the ledge where Jinji lay, and had carried him up to safety in his arms. “I’m not sure about most of that,” said Barak, “but I know he saved the man’s life and knocked out a gun cave. Raful told me as much.”

  “Well, he took a crazy chance. Do you admire that?” Yael’s comment was snappish and, Barak thought, peculiarly frosty. “How long will he last doing such things, and what kind of leadership is that?”

  Barak stood up. “Avraham Yoffe has told me to take seventy-two hours. Three days with my wife and kids! That’s leadership.”

  “Was Kishote hurt? Did you see him?”

  “Yes. Not a scratch.”

  “Then all I can say is, ‘God watches over the simple.’” It was a byword from the Psalms.

  “I’ll tell you, Yael. Kishote is a bit crazy. So was his friend Gulliver. So was Theodor Herzl. So is Ben Gurion. Kishote’s a soldier, a fighter, and he’ll be a player, if he lives, right to the top.”

  ***

  Barak left Yael crouched over a paper cup of tepid coffee, in an agitated quandary.

  She was a very regular female, and therefore damnably worried. Once, only once, had she ever missed, in a tense time of high school examinations. Then she had been a virgin and there had been no other possible explanation but tension. This time the other explanation was all too plain; high jinks in the penthouse of the George Cinq Hotel. She had thought it a safe time of the month, it had just been impulsive foolery with distracting interruptions, and the long and short of it was—either war tension was making her miss, or the French whore was in trouble.

  The unlikelihood of it, the sheer injustice of it, aggravated Yael Luria. Years of passionate lovemaking with Sam Pasternak, sometimes occurring in a storm of quarrelling or reunion when precautions were forgotten, and yet—nothing! Had it happened with Sam, a lever of a sort would have been placed in her hand. At least she loved him! But by the worst luck, she had been giving Sam the old freeze lately, so it just couldn’t be Sam. She couldn’t even pretend she thought so. What a trap! It had to be the stress of war—of course it could be the war—or else she was actually pregnant by that foolhardy Don Kishote, who with his other draw-backs had that religious Jerusalem girlfriend. An appalling possibility, that it might be Don Kishote! To be shut from mind until the next time had come and gone.

  All during KADESH, as she had worked night and day at headquarters, the mounting number of missed days had kept unnerving pace for Yael with the accumulating victories. One cheering ray in the gloom had been the thought that if the worst should come to the worst, she would know she was fertile. Yael had done too much sterile lovemaking, with Pasternak and before him, not to have a suppressed gnaw about this. And now Barak had offered another cheering ray in her quandary. If Yossi was no Sam Pasternak, he was emerging from the pack. He had scored high in KADESH, after all. “A player to the top, if he lives!”

  Still it had better be tension. As the man in her life she wanted no part of that beguiling daredevil, Don Kishote.

  ***

  “You’re hurt!” Nakhama exclaimed, as she opened the door to Barak.

  “Mostly I’m dirty.” He held his wife at arm’s length to kiss her, but she thrust past his arms to hug and kiss him hungrily. She then touched the bandages. “Zev, what happened?”

  “Scrapes and a sprain. Nothing more. Very lucky, my jeep hit a mine. I have to shower, and you’ll change the dressings.”

  Noah appeared in scout uniform, a lean brown sharp-eyed boy carrying a newspaper. Almost twelve, he was on his dignity, and well past scampering and dancing when his soldier father came home. “Look, Abba!”

  A three-column picture on the front page of Ha’aretz (The Land) showed the Egyptian command car flying a white flag, and behind it Barak at the wheel of his jeep, with a helmeted soldier manning the machine gun.

  Michael Berkowitz limped out of a bedroom in hat and overcoat, a thick briefcase under his arm. “Wolfgang, welcome home! You’re all right?” He threw an arm around Barak’s shoulders, kissed his sandy cheek, and pointed at Ha’aretz. “You’re the talk of the university.”

  “Aren’t classes suspended?”

  “They’re resuming Monday. I’m doing backed-up paperwork. That girl Shayna is helping me.”

  “Good, tell her that her paratrooper is okay. I saw him at Sharm el Sheikh. He distinguished himself in battle.”

  “Ah, she’ll be happy! She hasn’t said anything, but she’s been in a fog of worry. So, we’ll have a good talk tonight.”

  But the brothers did not talk that night. Nakhama made an early dinner and put the baby, Galia, to bed. Noah balked, insisting that he wanted to hear all about the march to Sharm el Sheikh. His father had gotten as far as the arrival at the oasis of the landing craft and the search for the snipers who had killed his soldiers, when Nakhama interfered. “Abba is exhausted, be off with you, Noah. He’ll be here for three days, you’ll hear it all.” With her husb
and absent so much she ruled the family, an old-fashioned Moroccan-style mother.

  Barak tumbled into bed between fresh sheets, revelling in the comfort and in being clean, but disoriented by the unexpected transit from the beautiful battle-torn Sharm El Sheikh vistas, to the narrow walls of the flat, the warm quiet music of family talk, and the fragrance of his wife’s spicy cooking and of Nakhama herself. She had been strictly business as he sat nude in the bathroom and she changed his bandages, a chore she was used to; and she maintained that manner when she brought the radio into the bedroom and pulled down the shades on a window violet with twilight. “You’re absolutely worn out. You’ll hear the six o’clock news and you’ll go to sleep. None of that,” she said, deflecting the arm he reached for her. “Let’s listen to the news, I say.”

  She sat on the bed and they clasped hands as the bulletins came thick and fast, the international news first. The French and British landing forces were advancing down the Canal Zone against weak Egyptian opposition, but the political situation was turning catastrophic. In London spreading street riots and an uproar in Parliament had the Eden government near collapse. In the UN a rising howl against France, England, and Israel was being stirred up and directed by the Americans. The Russians were openly preparing to land troops in Egypt, and were inviting the Americans to join them in an expedition to “crush the aggressors.” The Bulganin letter to Ben Gurion was making world headlines. The announcer quoted samples: “Russia Will Crush Israel—Bulganin” and “Final Eradication of Zionism by USSR!”

  Nakhama’s hand tightened on her husband’s at these items. “Zev—” she murmured.

  “None of that will happen. The Americans are out to stop the landings, and they will probably do it. The Russians are making noise.”

  “Horrible noise!”

  “Well, Soviet noise.”