The Hope

by Herman Wouk

  It was a four-seater trainer with a large side door. Suited up for the jump, the parachute fastened and tightened on him by Yossi, the Ugandan climbed in first, and took a seat beside a large sandbag. “What’s this for?” he inquired a shade anxiously.

  “Ballast,” said Colonel Luria.

  “Ah, ballast,” said Idi Amin. “Yes. Ballast is very important.”

  The plane climbed swiftly and levelled off at jump altitude over green farmland bordered by the sparkling Mediterranean. “This is it, sir,” said Kishote. “Ready?”

  “Here? I’ll land in the water,” protested Amin, his eyes bulging and showing the whites.

  “Wind is off the sea at ten knots,” said Colonel Luria. “You’ll drift inland.”

  “Anytime, sir,” said Kishote, gesturing at the door. “Jump, count to three, pull the cord and”—he gestured at the silver parachute emblem on his chest—“you’re one of us.”

  Idi Amin stared down at the ground, out at the sea, at Colonel Luria, at Major Nitzan, then slowly, emphatically shook his head.

  “Sir,” said Yossi, “I’m under strict orders from the Foreign Minister to report that you jumped, and I’m going to. So make up your mind, sir.”

  The parachute blossomed white in the azure sky, and the plane circled in a steep descent. Soon Don Kishote drove the army car to the deserted potato field where the parachute lay flattened, a snowy blob fluttering gently in the light wind. “Let’s pick up your chute, sir,” Kishote said to Idi Amin, stopping the car, “so you can turn it in.”

  With a wily unembarrassed grin, the Ugandan got out and gathered the bundle of cords and silk in his long arms. Kishote helped him. “What about that?” inquired Amin, as Yossi unfastened cords from the sandbag.

  “Served its purpose,” said Yossi.

  With the parachute crumpled into the back seat, Yossi drove west on a dirt road, and pulled up on the edge of a grassy embankment. Below was the sandy beach, six or seven feet down. Clear waves quietly lapped at the sand. Idi Amin stared at him. “Now what’s this about?”

  “Sir, I have to report to the Foreign Minister in two words, ‘He jumped.’ I intend to do just that. So jump, and you’ll turn that in”—a thumb gesture at the back seat—“and you’ve got your silver parachute.”

  Idi Amin’s big dark moon face broke out in a charming, delighted smile, that in an eerie way reminded Kishote of Aryeh. “Ha ha! I understand! The Foreign Minister, she wants you to say, ‘He jumped!’ So we fool her! I jump, and you tell her the truth. ‘He jumped!’”

  “That’s exactly right, sir.”

  “Major, you’re a clever one. Here goes.” Amin bent his knees once or twice on the edge, then jumped, hit the sand, and tumbled. “Damn, ow, that hurt!” he yelled. “I think I sprained my ankle.”

  “All the better, sir. You’ll be limping back. Realistic! So don’t brush off that sand.”

  After returning Idi Amin to his limousine, Don Kishote drove straight to the Foreign Ministry. Golda Meir’s secretary passed him into her office, where she was conferring with several staff men in short-sleeved shirts.

  “Nu?” she greeted Kishote, without ceremony.

  “He jumped.”

  She nodded grimly. “I hear he injured his ankle and is limping.”

  “The doctor taped it up. Nothing serious.”

  “Asita hayil.” (“Well done.”)

  “Ken, ha’m’fakedet.” The edgy tone made the staff men’s heads turn. Don Kishote turned on his heel and walked out. No salute.

  ***

  After a two-day brigade exercise in the Negev in night parachuting, Kishote came home late in the evening and found Yael sitting on a worn yellow sofa, looking disconsolate. The flat was all furnished: dining set, bedroom set, rugs, chairs and armchairs, coffee table, lamps on side tables, even pictures on the walls; a wolf howling at the moon, a rabbi clutching a Torah. The effect was bleak and seedy, a mishmash of secondhand odds and ends. “Well anyway,” Yael greeted him, “now the place doesn’t look as though you haven’t got a wife.”

  “When did you say they’re coming?”

  “Tomorrow for tea, then they drive back to Haifa.”

  “Do we have any wine?”

  “What’s the matter? Have you eaten dinner?”

  “Just a glass of wine.”

  He talked about the exercise as he drank two glasses of the Adom Atik they kept in the house for Shabbat kiddush. He wanted Aryeh to get used to the ritual, and a bottle usually lasted a month or so, but Don Kishote was in a rare embittered mood. Deputy commander of the brigade, he had argued with the commander against scheduling a night drill. “I told Doron, I said, ‘Look, we’ll probably never jump again in a combat situation, it’s an obsolete tactic. Certainly never at night, so why do it?’ You know what his answer was? ‘The exercise is on.’” Kishote finished the wine at a gulp. “We had a lot of injuries. Parachute training is fine, it creates an elite in the infantry, I believe in it, but there’s a limit.”

  “I can buy flowers,” said Yael, glancing around, “and some books. Flowers and books make a big difference.”

  He put an arm around her. “How’s Aryeh?”

  “He wants a dog. I bought him a new suit. He looks so handsome in it!”

  “Yael, they know I’ve got a wife.”

  She looked straight at him. “I’ll tell you something. Sam Pasternak’s always said you should go into armor. He thinks you’ve got a great future, and tanks are the service, tanks are what decide wars. Tanks and the air.”

  Somehow it still irked Yossi when she spoke about Pasternak. “I’ve been in tanks. I’m a paratrooper. I love my brigade, and I don’t think about the future.”

  “I do. You should.”

  “The Africans have their graduation ceremony day after tomorrow. I may call in sick…. Flowers and books are a nice idea.”

  She hurried home early in a taxi next day to get ready for the visitors. Outside their garden apartment house in Ramat Aviv soldiers were unloading furnishings from an army truck and streaming in and out of their ground-floor flat. “What to all the devils—!” she exclaimed, rushing inside. Don Kishote and his old friend Shmuel from the Karl Netter days, the big bearded Turk, were in the living room, both in uniform, directing the soldiers to lug furniture here and there.

  “We’re almost finished,” said Kishote. “The flowers and the books came, by the way. We’ll put them around last.”

  Shmuel said, “Doesn’t it look nice, Yael?”

  “Nice!” she gasped.

  Shmuel’s father was a wealthy furniture dealer, and on his son’s marriage to a buxom air force corporal from Argentina, he had furnished up a magnificent flat for them. This opulence now engulfed Yael: a gorgeous plushy Turkish carpet, figured draperies and silk cushions masking the seedy furniture; also rich brocades and tapestries on the wall instead of the wolf and the rabbi, and wherever the eye turned, a clutter of fine objets d’art.

  “By your life, Kishote, what have you done?”

  “Yael, my love, what you want is for Shayna Matisdorf to drop dead. This should do it. No?”

  “You’re a madman. I don’t want anything of the kind!”

  “You don’t like it?” inquired Shmuel a shade anxiously. “We can take it all out.”

  “Why, it’s all great. It’s just, well Shmuel, it’s so, so Turkish.” As his face fell she added quickly, “Not that I don’t like Turkish style, I love it.”

  “It’s all going back tomorrow,” said Don Kishote, “This is just so Shayna should drop dead.”

  “Stop saying that. You know I’m not like that.” Yael burst out laughing. “Look, Shmuel, I could easily get used to these things, they’re beautiful. Thanks!”

  “No problem,” said Shmuel with a hirsute grin.

  “I’ll fetch Aryeh from kindergarten,” said Kishote.

  Yael said, “All right, you crazy man. Now where are the flowers? The books? And are you going to wear that wrinkled uniform?”


  ***

  Little Aryeh took for granted the Turkish transformation of his home, since nearly everything in his life was a novelty. When Professor Berkowitz and Lena arrived, he exhibited a precocious sense of occasion, sitting quietly on a low chair in his new suit, munching a cookie, and observing the visitors with sharp eyes. Seeing him focus on the professor’s canes when he arrived Kishote winced, but his son looked up at him, saw his warning frown and slight head shake, and ignored the canes thereafter.

  “Shayna will be along,” said Michael. “Charming place you’ve got here.”

  “Tasteful,” said Lena, a plump lady in her late twenties, with a round face, a broad peasant nose, and a clever good-humored look. “Sort of Turkish, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of,” said Kishote. “I had an uncle in Ankara. He died and left me these things. He was in figs. Quite well off.”

  “I really love my bridal gown,” Lena said to Yael. “Nothing like it in Haifa.”

  “I’m glad.”

  They were making such awkward small talk when the doorbell rang. Don Kishote went and opened the door. Shayna stood there in the same old black raincoat, and she looked no different than she had at the windmill, even to the pained wide eyes. For Yossi, seeing her at his door was almost like being hit by a car, the impact was so startling and hurt so much. Her dark eyes met his, and it was all still there; the depth, the fatally wounded love, and all the agony of their last parting. In nearly three years nothing had changed between them! That was the real shock. Not for her, that truth was in her expression; and not for him, by the power of that truth to shake him. Her face was pale and composed. “Hello, Yossi.” She offered her hand, and stepped inside. “So that’s Aryeh. Hello, Yael. Well! He looks like you, Yossi, doesn’t he?”

  “So they say.”

  She went to Aryeh and bent down. “My name is Shayna.”

  For the first time the child spoke. “Teacher Shayna.”

  “That’s right,” said Yael. “His kindergarten teacher is Shayna, too.”

  Lena said, “We’ve heard such nice things about you, Aryeh. You sing and dance, don’t you? Will you do it for us?”

  Aryeh brusquely shook his head.

  “He hasn’t been this quiet since he had his tonsils out,” said Kishote, “under ether.”

  “Let’s have tea,” said Yael, “and forget him for a while. That will do it.”

  After the political chit-chat usual in Israel, Michael Berkowitz disclosed, over the tea, that the army had recruited him, with the rank of captain. “My profile is about sixty percent, but the army wants my physics, not my physique.” He chuckled at his academic joke, and fumbled with his knitted skullcap. “That nuclear reactor the Americans sold us is just a small laboratory thing. All kinds of American inspectors and controls. The French are talking business about a serious reactor. An installation we’ll build and run ourselves.”

  “‘Exalted and praised be the living God…’” Aryeh piped up in song, getting off his chair.

  “Ah, here we go,” said Yael. “Inattention is what activates him.”

  “‘He exists, but His existence is outside time…’” The tune to these grave words was gaily syncopated, and Aryeh showed off with lively hops and turns.

  “What on earth is that child singing?” inquired Lena.

  “Surely you know it,” said Shayna. “That’s ‘Yigdal.’ The morning synagogue hymn.”

  “I haven’t been inside a synagogue in my life.”

  “‘He is One, and there is no unity like His unity…’”

  As the child capered, looking around for applause, Lena persisted, “But does he have the faintest idea what the words mean? Does he go to some super-religious kindergarten?”

  “It isn’t religious at all. Just a neighborhood kindergarten,” said Kishote.

  “‘He is a mystery, and there is no end to His Oneness…’”

  “What a memory, Aryeh!” Shayna clapped in time to his song, and he danced in front of her, eyes alight.

  “Michael, dear,” said Lena, her brow knitted with worry, “will our kids have to learn such things?”

  “They’re bound to, my love, unless we farm them out to a Marxist kibbutz.” He shrugged and smiled at the others. “Talk about your marriage of opposites!”

  “Well, I’ll stick to our deal,” said Lena, “but I’ll certainly insist that they learn some regular nursery rhymes, too.”

  Shayna caught up the little boy and kissed him. He put his hands on her face, and kissed her forehead.

  “Well, he’s a joy,” said Professor Berkowitz, glancing at Lena and at his watch. “Halevai af unz.” (“May we be so blessed.”)

  “Amen,” she said, “and we should be thinking of going.”

  Shayna put down the boy, and they were all making their farewells when he came in from the bedroom in helmet and sword. “Shayna, Judah Maccabee,” he said, and commenced a Hanukkah act of fierce swordplay for her. She picked him up again, and with a kiss handed him to Yael, shaking her head and smiling. “A treasure,” she whispered. Yael held Aryeh close and returned a deprecating shrug, as though to say, “If you only knew, he’s just a big nuisance.”

  Kishote walked out with them. Michael limped to a rusty small car and Lena helped him in. Shayna lingered behind, strolling side by side with Yossi.

  “Shayna,” said Don Kishote with uncharacteristic gentleness, “this was a big surprise. A very nice one.”

  “Well, Yossi, a lot of time has gone by, hasn’t it? I heard about Aryeh, and I wanted to see him.”

  “I’m very glad you came, Shayna.”

  “So am I. He’s a wonderful child. And Yael looks like a Renoir.”

  “Are you happy, Shayna?”

  She halted. He glanced at her, and the depths in her eyes shook him as before. “I’m fine. And now you’re a father. I still find that strange.”

  “Did you think I’d never grow up?”

  “Have you?”

  “Hey, I’m a major, Shayna.”

  “I know. Major Nitzan. I like Nitzan.” She gave him her hand. “I love Aryeh.” He wanted to hold on to her hand and exchange more words, but she withdrew it and got into the car. “Goodbye, Major.”

  “Shayna didn’t drop dead,” Yael said when he came back to the apartment. “I don’t believe she noticed the furniture.”

  “Lena did. That Lena is okay,” Yossi said. “A forthright lady.”

  Yael began picking up the tea things. “Well, she drives a hard bargain, I’ll tell you that.” Still in his helmet, Aryeh was filching a cream cake. Yael yanked it from him, mashing it. Aryeh wrinkled up his face at her in hurt anger. “Dinnertime. You’ll kill your appetite.”

  Yossi took his hand, “Come, Judah Maccabee, party’s over. I’ll bathe you.”

  ***

  A band played and a red-bereted paratroop battalion in dress uniform paraded in fierce sunshine, then stood at attention for the ceremony of awarding silver parachutes to the African officers. Major Nitzan walked behind the Ramatkhal (Chief of Staff), General Tzur, as he passed down their line, pinned the emblems on them, and shook hands, one by one. Idi Amin, when Kishote went by, gave him a broad wink.

  Zev Barak was there, watching the ceremony. Afterward, as the Ramatkhal chatted with the Africans and the paratroopers noisily dispersed, he beckoned to Yossi, who was striding off the parade ground. “Don Kishote! Ma nishma? I spoke to my brother Michael on the phone yesterday. He says you and Yael have a wunderkind.”

  “Zev, when can I have a talk with you?”

  “What’s wrong with right now? I’m just waiting for the Ramatkhal. We’re planning an air-and-armor war game for later this year.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about, armor.”

  Yael sat up late, wondering where her husband was. Usually he called when he had to change plans, but dinnertime had come and gone, and the chicken she had roasted was cold and uneaten in the oven. When he was not there she dined on cottage cheese and a cr
acker. The apartment was shabby again, the Turkish fantasia cleared away. The Shayna visit had come and gone like a summer storm, brief and tumultuous but wreaking no damage. Or had it? Yossi had sat up reading that night until she fell asleep, and had slipped into the other rented twin bed without disturbing her.

  The door opened and he came in smiling. “Sorry, business. I’m hungry.”

  “There’s a chicken all cooked. I’ll heat it up.”

  He ate with appetite, putting down half the chicken and most of a bread loaf, talking inconsequentially about politics. She put at his elbow the large pot of tea he would drink after a good meal. “Well, there’s news,” he said as he poured his first cup. “You know that Zev Barak’s the operations officer of the Armored Corps.”

  “Yes?”

  “I met him today at that—that ceremony.” He bit out the word. “He needs a deputy, it turns out. We got to talking. I said I was interested in maybe transferring to armor. Like that, he offered me the job.”

  “You accepted?”

  “I couldn’t, straight off. It’s a decision. I know tanks, but I’d still have to take the armor course. Maybe a special command course, too.”

  “Accept his offer, Yossi.”

  “It’s a staff post. I’d rather be in the field.”

  “I tell you, take that job.” Strong tone, just short of bossy. “I know what I’m talking about. So do you.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  She came around the table to hug and kiss him. They made love that night in her twin bed. He spoke up in the darkness after a silence. “You know something? A bed beats the floor, after all.”

  Yael, feeling foxy, and somewhat reassured after the turmoil of Shayna’s visit, said, “A great leap forward, as Chairman Mao would say.”

  “Something exciting about a narrow bed, too,” he said. “It’s the precariousness. You’re hanging on to each other not just for love, but so as not to fall out on the floor.”

  A long pause. Yael, cool and quiet: “Shayna Matisdorf will never get married.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “You’ll see. Not while you’re alive.”

  “Shayna got over me long ago. I was never religious enough for her, anyway.”