“No. I don’t.”
Rivkah emerged. The smells of damp hair and freshness spilled around her. She beamed to see Mrs. Pappel and Vince together.
Mrs. Pappel pushed Vince’s unfinished breakfast back to him.
Chapter 56
Rivkah
Driving north through the parched hills, Vince barely spoke. Plainly he’d crossed words with Mrs. Pappel over breakfast.
She let him mull, let the sun rise with her window down and the air buffeting in. Rivkah made a wing of her hand in the wind.
The road elevated on the approach to Bethlehem. Vince skirted the city and headed west, where the land fell into green valleys. They rolled through fertile spaces, past Arab villages and minarets, Jewish settlements, mule-drawn carts in the road, fruit and vegetable vendors beside fields, long fallow stretches, bleak hills, stone homes.
Vince drove into a northern stretch Rivkah had never before traveled, up the seacoast past Rishon LeZion, Ramat Gan, Petah Tikvah. The towns were like bits of Europe; fifty thousand Jews lived in these places where offices and factories, not fields, swallowed the workers, and the avenues bustled with commerce. In Massuot Yitzhak, Rivkah could forget that all Palestine wasn’t just a boulder and a pry bar.
A half hour out of Tel Aviv, the road slowed into the industrial outskirts of Netanya. Vince ran fingertips across his lips, to say something, but first he seemed to feel for the words.
“Look.”
“Yes?”
“There’s some things I want to tell you. Just regular things about me. And questions I want to ask about you.”
“Go ahead.”
Vince freed a hand from the wheel to make circling gestures, trying to summon more.
“I want to know about you. Your family. But I don’t want to upset you.”
“It will.”
“Then we can talk about other things. That’s okay.”
Rivkah rested her back against the passenger door, facing him.
“I’d like us to wait. Until after we’ve had these few days together. Let’s not put the past between us until we’re strong enough to hold it.”
“Sounds good.”
“I like the way I just said that.”
“You could be a writer.”
“Good. I think you have no chance of being a farmer.”
“Oh, no?” Vince laughed as if she’d challenged him. The sourness in the car disappeared, and the ride became something they did together, not apart.
North of Netanya, the highway gave them blue glimpses of the Mediterranean. Vince described the things he saw, flowers in the sunlight, boys on mules, emerald stretches of crops, as if practicing the words he’d write about this trip. He put his own hand out into the speeding wind. Rivkah matched it and, for a while, they flew over the road.
Chapter 57
Vince
Ein Herod
Rivkah hurried across the grass for a spot close to the stage, leaving Vince to keep up. She carried a blanket; he handled the basket Mrs. Pappel had packed with food and water jars. Hundreds of concertgoers flowed into the meadow, hauling umbrellas, folding chairs, and baskets.
The stage was set up at the far edge of the field. A roof and canvas walls would keep the weather off the performers. Behind the stage lay a vista of barley, rows of alfalfa, and young corn. Mount Gilboa rose behind the fields with a cloud snagged on its peak like a white banner.
Several hundred concertgoers were already in place. Thirty meters from the platform, Rivkah spread her blanket. Others filled in, though Bernstein and the orchestra wouldn’t arrive in Ein Harod for several more hours.
Strangers greeted one another as they set up their little sites. By the time Rivkah handed Vince a plate of chicken and slaw, she’d already been given tomatoes by neighbors and made promises of sharing Mrs. Pappel’s cake and pie. Married people and young lovers gabbled about the perfect afternoon, the setting, the thrill of the event. They swept Rivkah into their talk; she became the center of their circle.
She identified Vince as an American newspaperman. Briefly, he became the focus, and he didn’t mind. The neighbors introduced themselves by their professions, as teachers, businesspeople, craftsmen, and tradesmen. One couple had just gotten engaged. An older pair named places in the States they’d visited. Only Rivkah among them lived on a kibbutz. When she said she was from Gush Etzion, this drew much admiration, for they knew of it, knew it was surrounded by Arabs.
While their group ate and shared, the tide of people flooding into Ein Harod tripled. In an hour, three thousand crammed the field; behind them, hundreds reclined in truck beds and horse-drawn carts.
The sunlight began to slant; the day cooled. The crowd whiled away the remaining hours until the concert. Cigarettes and pipes came out, heads lay on pillows or laps, voices eased.
Vince reclined. He took Rivkah’s hand but did not pull her down; that was for her to decide. So much of what they did together, they did for the first time. In this field of unfamiliar people, they could be their own invention, a couple.
She eased her head onto his shoulder and flattened a hand on his chest. Under her palm he felt the beating of his own heart. Rivkah fidgeted; by that, he knew she lay awake with his heartbeat, too.
The crowd cheered the sight of the orchestra’s buses coming into view and continued cheering while the musicians filed onto the platform. Stagehands carried in a tympani drum and a harp and got applause for it.
A hundred orchestra members—men in tuxedos, women in floor-length black—arranged themselves by instrument: strings, flutes, woodwinds, and brass, with percussion and harp to the rear. All faced a small box where Bernstein would stand.
The famous conductor stayed out of sight while his orchestra warmed and tuned. When he mounted the stage at last, he took only a few moments with the thunderous ovation; Bernstein bowed, stepped onto his podium, put his back to the crowd, and raised a baton. The audience hushed; the musicians readied. Leonard Bernstein held motionless, arms aloft in the outpouring of silence from his orchestra, from the audience, the land, as if to allow everything else to step aside before he began.
The first stanzas of Jeremiah opened gently, a plea from the strings and punctuating brass, but Bernstein didn’t ease into the score. From the first notes, he conducted with an athletic breadth as though he were the prophet himself begging the Chosen People to remain faithful, the underlying tale of the symphony. As the movements progressed from the first to the second, “Prophesy” into “Profanation,” Bernstein presided over the battles between brass and woodwind, strings and percussion, to tell the story of God’s people who had strayed. The music ascended and raced along, either hopeful or clashing, with Bernstein fanning it as much as directing. In other passages the passions plunged, seemed to wander in valleys, and the conductor let them mourn until he bid the music rise, a guide star to the lost.
For the final movement, “Lamentation,” a mezzo-soprano stepped to a microphone. She became the voice of Jeremiah’s grief at the destruction of Jerusalem, an angry and tearless sorrow: How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people? She hath none to comfort her among all her lovers; all her friends have become her enemies. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, how doth the city sit solitary, a widow.
The thousands on blankets and on the hoods of trucks spilled their hearts when the symphony ended. They’d been welled-up during the performance, too rapt to cry. When Bernstein lowered his baton, every voice in the field erupted, Rivkah’s too. She rocketed to her feet, wiping eyes on the pads of her palms.
She clapped and shouted for the orchestra, which took many bows; Vince couldn’t hear her voice for the wild ovation. Then she turned to him.
Knowing she could not be heard, Rivkah mouthed the words, “Thank you.” She lifted her strong arms in her rolled-up sleeves. Rivkah held them apart but did not step forward to him. Sh
e waited, beaming more than she had even at Bernstein, for Vince to come to her.
He held back, not to hesitate but to marvel at her in the sea of hurrahs and deafening applause, every person looking forward and she looking backward, only at him.
Chapter 58
Rivkah
At the end of the concert an announcement was made. Something had happened in Nazareth; the British had shut down the roads. No one could leave Ein Harod tonight. All were welcome to camp in the field for the night.
The lights came on in the hundred homes of Ein Harod. Barn animals bawled to be fed. The lights of the orchestra’s buses faded around a bend, but they wouldn’t get far. Stagehands packed up the larger instruments. The crowd on the grass settled again on their blankets.
Rivkah patted the ground. Vince looked about as if taking stock; he seemed never to have considered sleeping outdoors before.
A nearby couple said, “We have an extra blanket.”
Rivkah accepted, then rummaged inside Mrs. Pappel’s basket to find two jars of water and half of a cherry pie.
“What do you think happened?” The woman who’d loaned them the blanket asked Vince.
“A bombing. A raid. Something.”
Rivkah entered the talk to stop it, to spare Vince from being made the authority on violence. She offered the last of the cherry pie to anyone who wanted it. No one took it, but all saw what she was doing; the couples shifted the topic to the concert.
The stars over the Jezreel Valley were as plentiful as Massuot Yitzhak’s. Rivkah tried to see patterns, though she knew no constellations. The music swirled in her head, her hands held the tingle of so much clapping. The concertgoers carpeted the field, and on the rim of the grasses a few hundred reclined in the beds of trucks and wagons. A calm descended over the throng, a warm, living silence.
Vince, all knees and elbows, lanky and confounded, mentioned sleeping in the car. Rivkah tutted at him. She rose and said as she walked away, “Silly.”
From behind the stage, she plucked an armful of barley, gathered it into a sheaf, then used the stems to tie a bundle. Returning, Rivkah slipped the bale under the ground blanket for a pillow. She rested her head on the soft bulge; Vince’s head settled next to hers.
For the first moments lying beside him, Rivkah thought of anything but Vince. The pinprick stars, a cushion of spring grass, a borrowed blanket, she took in everything that was not him because the instant she turned to Vince the rest would disappear. She listened to other couples say goodnight, whispers in the field, insects in the grass, snores and coughs that swept her back in time to a ship. The night would be damp and different from her dry hilltop. When she had enough of the world, when she felt brimming, like drawing a deep breath before diving, Rivkah rolled to her shoulder and kissed Vince.
Chapter 59
Hugo
June 22
Tel Aviv
Hugo let the screen door slam behind him and sauntered in. He let himself appear friendly and a little lost when he stepped up to a counter. “Hello?”
A heavyset man in coveralls wiped his hands on a rag. Hugo reached across the counter to shake, to show he didn’t care about dirt on anyone’s hands. On the wall behind the counter were calendars, carmaker signs, adverts for oil and windshield wipers.
“Are you the owner?”
“I am.”
Hugo told him he was a produce merchant from Jaffa who needed a cool basement to store potatoes, to transport them to the Tel Aviv market in the mornings. Did this building have a basement?
“It does.”
“May I see it?”
Hugo followed through the building, a murky, airless storehouse for auto parts. Starters, solenoids, piston rods, carburetors, and radiators lined shelves, spark plugs and all sizes of hoses filled cubbies and barrels. The gritty floor smelled of grease, iron, and rubber.
The man appraised Hugo in the way of a mechanic, measuring the little potato merchant. Hugo flattered the warehouse, claimed he could build an entire car from the contents. The owner said he lacked tires but the rest, yes, perhaps so. Hugo selected a hose from a barrel. Fuel line for a Ford? Yes.
“Your basement must be full.”
“It’s not. The garage is falling off. I used to do a lot of work for the police.”
“Oh?”
“Their headquarters is across the street, at Citrus House. These days, with barbed wire and checkpoints everywhere, curfews, no one can drive. Now, I work on one or two cars a week.”
The owner opened a door to a flight of down steps. He tugged a chain for the stairwell light and led the way.
The basement was wide open, a bare dirt floor and brick walls. Judging from the cobwebs and dust, it was dry. Overhead, stout floorboards would be soundproof. A shorter set of steps led to a storm door. Hugo pushed the door open into an alley.
“I’ll need it for a few months.”
Hugo followed the owner up to the storeroom. The man’s heavy steps said he was not political, only tired. He might have suspected something, he might not, but he was quick to explain he rarely came to the storehouse, never went down to the basement. At the counter he drafted a bill for the first month’s rent.
After the lease was signed, Hugo returned to the produce truck he’d parked in front of the garage. He drove to the alley and stopped at the storm door. The two Irgunists riding along jumped out of the cab when he did.
Hugo’s porters lowered the truck’s gate and set to unloading several bags of potatoes. A bag spilled and broke open in the alley; spuds rolled in every direction. Hugo loudly berated the two for their clumsiness while across the street, behind barbed wire, policemen watched.
Chapter 60
Hugo
June 24
At dawn, Hugo rapped on the cellar door, then waited while it was lifted by a dirt-streaked digger he didn’t know. Hugo descended the steps from the alley.
Four more sappers sat with backs against the walls; shovels, short-handled picks, and rakes leaned beside them. The north wall had been punched through, bricks stacked out of the way. A lone bulb made all the sweaty men glisten. Twenty bulging burlap sacks waited to be carried out. The clods inside made the bags knobby, like they were filled with potatoes.
The filthy lad indicated the tunnel, for Hugo to have a look.
Hugo kneeled in the mouth. At the far end burned a lantern. The first night’s work had broken through the wall and bored fifteen feet. At this rate, the operation would take a week, right on schedule.
Hugo crawled inside. On his knees, he touched the rounded walls of the shaft, then brought the lantern with him when he backed out.
He tried to heft one of the burlap sacks by himself but couldn’t manage. The sappers waved him off the task. Kharda had his piece of the mission; they had theirs. They shouldered the bags up the steps into the truck bed.
When the vehicle was loaded, Hugo went into the basement with the sappers, to stay a minute. He gave them cigarettes and sat against the walls like them. He couldn’t talk to them because he couldn’t know them. They tipped up their chins, smoking with eyes closed. Their labor was done until sundown; they dug only at night and boobytrapped the tunnel while they were gone.
Hugo climbed the steps into the morning. Across the road, beside rail tracks, stood Citrus House, a modern metallic building, five stories high, shaped like a barrel. Barbed wire ringed the place; police snipers patrolled the roof. Dozens of cop cars were parked close to the building, as if afraid.
Hugo drove out of the alley, six miles east to a farm in Petah Tikvah where Irgunists would dump the dirt in the fields.
Chapter 61
Hugo
July 1
Ramat Gan
Hugo didn’t like waking to clucking hens; someone near the safe house kept a pen and a roost. In an early and gloomy light, he made his coffee.
The drive to the basement in Tel Aviv took ten minutes. At this hour, nothing but trucks rolled with him on the road, some with headlights on. Arriving, Hugo cruised slowly past Citrus House. Even at sunrise, every pillbox and checkpoint was manned, the long barrels of sniper rifles prickled the roof, armed cops roamed the wire. Hugo rumbled into the alley behind the garage. This was his fifth trip and might be the last; yesterday, the sappers had had twenty feet to go. Tomorrow, they would be directly under Citrus House.
He jumped down, eager to congratulate the sappers. Hugo took with him a fresh pack of cigarettes to hand around. No one answered his rap on the basement door. They knew to expect him. He peered both ways in the alley, then climbed back into the produce truck.
Before he could start the engine, the basement door lifted. He reached for the glove box.
“Hugo.”
With his finger on the glove box button, Hugo froze. None of the sappers knew his real name; to them he was only Kharda.
Up the basement steps climbed tall, white-shirted, broad-shouldered Julius of the Palmach.
“How have you been? I haven’t seen you in a year.”
Hugo kept his hands on the wheel though the engine wasn’t running.
“I’ve been well. You look the same.”
“Come down. Let me get a good look at you.”
Hugo wanted to flee, but there would be roadblocks set for him. He slid down out of the truck. Julius, as ever, towered over him.
Julius indicated the truck. “Are you working for a produce company now?”
“Can we get to it?”
Julius nodded and gestured to the steps for Hugo to descend first. This felt like respect, like they were equals.
Isaac's Beacon Page 22
