Promised Land

by Martin Fletcher

  “You’re in the next ambulance,” the medic said to David. “It may not look like much but who knows what damage the bullet did inside.” He moved to Yehuda, wiped his face, bound his forehead and his ear. “You’re fine,” he said, “it looks worse than it is. Wait here.” He moved to the next man, and the next, while Ido licked his lips, his eyes closed, trying to shut out the carnage.

  The medics had fought with the second wave of soldiers, picking their way through the dead, some blown to bits by land mines, others ripped by machine-gun bullets and hand grenades, blood and broken bones marking the infantry’s costly, stubborn progress up the hill. The Syrian bunkers and trenches were still smoking from the Israeli grenades. Syrian corpses lay by the Israeli dead where they had fought with fists, knives, and rifle butts. The wounded groaned, some screamed for help. An ambulance left with some, another came for more.

  Ido opened his eyes and rolled to his side. He steadied himself with one hand, the other still grasping his weapon. With a mighty exhalation and effort, he rose to his knees, and then, leaning against the concrete bunker, he stood, bent double, gasping for breath. Finally he straightened and surveyed the hill of death. Earlier, it seemed from another age, he had forced himself to look into the staring remaining eye of Baruch, who had carried the heavy machine gun. The top of his head was missing, a shell must have sheared it off, scalped him. How did this happen? Baruch, a mountain of a man who carried the heavy gun like a toothpick. A medic had come, Ido thought that maybe he thinks he’s alive, after all, and will take his pulse. Instead, the medic covered Baruch’s face with a jacket.

  One by one his friends were killed at his side. He couldn’t even help the wounded, the order was to climb up and up, forward and forward, officers first. Over the barbed wire, shooting into trenches, man-to-man, more barbed wire, more trenches, more enemy, then the bunkers, firing into the slits, dropping in hand grenades, no surrender, no prisoners.

  Ido teetered, and vomited. He crouched, retching and spitting. A medic splashed water into his face. “I’m okay,” Ido said, “a bit dizzy.”

  “Sit down, that’s an order.”

  Ido lay on the ground, his eyes closed. “Ido,” Yehuda said, scratching the bandage around his head, “Ido, you hear me?” He shook him hard. “Stay with me. Ido? Stay with me! Medic!” he yelled, “over here, quickly!”

  Ido’s eyes flickered. “Stop shouting, you’re making it worse. Give me water. Maybe a drip. I’m just dehydrated.”

  In the dark, half-tracks drove the Golani fighters back to base, while fresh soldiers occupied the Syrian bunker complex that was now in Israeli hands. It was the same all across the Golan Heights. Burning tanks, smashed Jeeps, crashed warplanes, broken bodies, and a promise that never again would Syrian artillery terrorize Israeli civilians working the valley fields. But the price was high, very high.

  TAMARA

  HERZLIYA, ISRAEL

  June 9, 1967

  On the same day, at four twenty-five in the afternoon, Daniel answered a knock on the door. It was the wartime nightmare that united all Israelis: two strangers in uniform. Daniel took a step back. “Is your mother home?” the woman said.

  Daniel couldn’t answer. He tried, his mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He opened the door wider and gestured for them to come in. The man, an officer, said, “Are you the son of Arie Nesher?”

  Daniel nodded, tears sprung.

  “Please get your mother, is she at home?”

  Daniel called in a flat voice from the foot of the stairs, “Ima. Tamara. Someone here to see you.” Rachel came out of the next room, saw the officers, and tottered against the wall. She began to wail. The female officer took her arm and guided her to the sofa. “We don’t know anything for sure, we’re just here to keep you informed, maybe there is nothing wrong.”

  “Then why are you here?” Rachel said, her body shuddering. “What has happened?”

  From the landing Tamara called out, “Coming.” As she descended the stairs she noticed the uniformed officers and halted. Her hand flew to her mouth, with the other she grabbed the banister. Her legs buckled, but she held herself upright, as the officer looked up. “Mrs. Nesher, please do not be alarmed,” the man said in a soft but firm voice. “We do not have anything to report, but we do have to inform you that your husband is missing, the army is searching for him…”

  “Missing? What do you mean, missing? Is he all right?”

  “Please come and sit down. We don’t know yet. We are sorry to frighten you…”

  Tamara interrupted. “How long has he been missing?”

  “Four days.”

  “Four days!”

  “Yes, I’d like to tell you of the circumstances, and what we are doing. If you have any questions at all, of any kind, I’m at the end of the phone on this number, anytime, day and night. My name is Ariel, and this is Captain Shulamit. She is a psychologist and can stay here with you if you like. Everybody is looking for your husband, Mrs. Nesher, with God’s help we will find him.”

  “But what do you mean missing? What happened?”

  Captain Ariel of the K’tzin Ha’ir, the city’s military liaison office, told her what he knew, while Rachel quietly sobbed.

  Daniel’s eyes were blank. He had gone back eleven years, to the little boy sleeping by the window, refusing to move until his father came home from the war. It had become a family joke and Daniel always retorted: “But it worked.” Now he moved behind Tamara and stroked her head. “Abba is all right, Mummy,” he said in a thin voice that betrayed him. “I know it. I just know it. He’s coming home. I promise. I’ll wait for him at the window.”

  Tamara burst into tears.

  As soon as the officers left, promising to phone with every bit of information, she phoned Peter, he would know what to do. He could find out more than what the army was telling her. She collected herself, she had to be calm. There was no answer on his direct line, so she called back and asked the desk if she could speak to him. Gingie took the call, sounding uncertain. Peter had told her not to say anything, he hoped they’d find Arie before Tamara needed to worry.

  “Tamara, how are you?”

  “I’m looking for Peter, is he there?”

  “No, not right now, I think he’s out in the field.”

  “I have to speak to him. It’s urgent. Oh Gingie, Arie is missing. Missing in action. What can I do?” She sobbed, collected herself. “I’m sorry. But I just heard. Maybe Peter knows something. Maybe he can do something. I must speak to him. Where is he, Gingie?”

  “Peter is in Gaza, Tamara. He’s looking for Arie.”

  IDO and ALICE

  SAFED, ISRAEL

  June 10, 1967

  “Aize bardak,” what a mess, Ido said to his sergeant, Avinoam, trying to park the Jeep. Ziv Hospital’s parking lot swarmed with men in uniform, families carrying baskets of food, ambulances weaving through, sirens wailing. Exhausted nurses in green smocks and doctors in white coats leaned against pillars and sat on patches of grass or brick walls, smoking silently with vacant stares.

  The emergency room was even worse and the corridors, smelling of disinfectant and blood, almost impassable. Wounded soldiers lay on stretchers on the floor with drips in their arms, parents knelt at their sides, tannoys kept up a din of announcements, calls for doctors, and appeals for quiet.

  “This is where they bring the wounded?” Ido muttered, “I’d rather be on the Golan. Well, maybe not.”

  “Maybe not,” Avinoam said. “Hey, there’s David.”

  From the middle of a row of beds they saw David waving. Their combat boots clattered on the tiles as they went to him. Ido kissed him on the head. David had been the joker of the unit, now he just looked tired and used up. “So what’s the story?” Ido said.

  “Nothing. I’m fine. I’m lucky, the bullet missed everything…”

  “Well, it hit you,” Avinoam said.

  “But it missed all the vital organs. They took it out this morning, just has to heal,
I’ll have a hole the size of a fingertip, otherwise, I’m great.”

  “Good to hear,” Ido said, sitting on the side of the bed. “Where are the others?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t seen anyone. It’s bedlam, but the doctors, nurses, the volunteers, they’re all amazing. You think we had it tough. They have to look after us.” He tried to laugh but contorted in pain. At the mention of volunteers Ido felt a pang of regret: what a pity that Alice was in Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, he didn’t know when he would be released, when he would see her next.

  “It won’t hurt for long,” Avinoam tried to reassure David, resting his hand on his arm. They fell silent, looking around the ward. The wounded soldiers most needed sleep but distraught families crowded around their beds. A nurse drew a curtain around one soldier and ushered his parents out. Another nurse wheeled in a trolley. They heard a single shout. “Uunh!” the mother gasped, as if it was she in pain, and fell onto the next bed. The soldier in it, his head and chest swathed in bandages, shifted to make room. “Sit down,” they heard him say. “Your boy is in good hands.”

  The ward fell silent for the radio news: A spectacular victory. The country trebled its size. The world applauds the plucky Jewish state. Ido said, “Let’s hope the cease-fire holds, it started at 4:30.”

  “Yeah. I can’t go through that again,” Avinoam said.

  “Let the world rejoice,” Ido said, “but it’s not the way I feel.” They counted the names of their dead buddies, it was inconceivable how many there were. Just in one battle, at Tel Faher, of twenty-five Israeli infantrymen, the Syrians killed twenty-one. So many funerals to attend, families to comfort. A gloomy silence fell over them, with Ido and Avinoam sitting on either side of David, holding his hands. “Well,” Ido stood at last with a sigh, “let’s go find the other lucky ones.” In their new world, a bullet in the stomach or shrapnel in the head counted as lucky. “Come on, Avinoam. How many of our guys are here, David, do you know?”

  “No idea. Most of the wounded went to Rambam. There must be a list somewhere.”

  “You’re kidding. Maybe in a week. Okay, gotta go, we’ll be back. Anything you need? Shall we call your family? You want to send a letter?”

  “That’s okay, they have volunteers here, they do all that. There was a pretty Yemenite chick from Rosh Pinna here last night, big lips, she held my hand for an hour.” He smiled at the memory. “I wouldn’t let go. I kept trying to pull her hand under the sheets.”

  They burst out laughing. “No, don’t, it hurts,” David cried. “But I tell you what, that was one strong girl, I couldn’t get her hand past my knee.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Tonight I’ll have better luck.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” Ido said. “We’re off, we’ll see who else we find.”

  “Thanks for coming, guys, really. I mean it.” He looked away.

  “Is that a tear?” Avinoam said. “Don’t be a baby.”

  “Piss off.”

  “Okay, he’s officially healed,” Ido said. “Take care, my friend, see you very soon.”

  “Yes, Captain. I’d salute but I never learned how.”

  David followed them with his eyes. Lucky bastards, he thought. He edged down in the bed to relieve the pressure on his stomach. He hadn’t even known he’d been shot, it must have come sideways through the flak jacket, he had felt an impact but thought a stone had somehow jumped up, he’d kept jumping from bush to rock, weaving and firing, and only when he lay behind a boulder to catch his breath did he see the blood, and the pain set in. It was Avinoam who fell next to him and bound the wound. He should have thanked him just now, he wished he had, but he couldn’t find the words. Instead they had just held hands.

  Ido led the way, scanning each ward as they passed, on the left and right, searching for wounded comrades. They found Jojo surrounded by his family who lived nearby in Kyriat Shmona, a town of mostly Moroccan immigrants. His neck was in a brace, his left arm in a sling, and his stomach and chest bandaged. He had been shot three times, but the greatest pain was the sprained ankle. He should have rested it but couldn’t, he had hobbled and fought for an hour. Now it was the size of a football.

  Across the noisy corridor was Yoram, the medic who interrupted his studies in England to rescue Israel. He’d go back to school with a leg missing below the knee from land mine shrapnel. His eyes were swollen from tears.

  After two hours they emerged into the fresh air and slumped on a wall with exhausted medics and volunteers. For ten minutes they found no words that matched their thoughts.

  Watching an ambulance load a burn victim for the drive to Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, Ido broke the silence with a dull monotone. “At least we won.”

  “Some victory.”

  “Shit.” Ido stamped a foot, as if extinguishing a cigarette stub. “Now, what? All I want to do is go home.”

  “Me too.”

  “They’ll keep me here till last,” Ido sighed. “The men go home first, officers clean up.”

  They sat with slumped shoulders, watching the bustle around them. At the entrance to the hospital soldiers who could walk stood with drips in their arms, snacking, chatting. Ido stood. “Come on, let’s get back to base, they may need us.”

  They walked past another burn case being maneuvered into an ambulance and climbed into the Jeep. Avinoam twisted around, with his arm around the back of Ido’s seat as he backed out, while Ido stared into the distance. He felt depressed, and relieved, but above all, in this moment, he just felt lonely as hell.

  There was a knock on the window. He looked up, and started. Her long brown hair was pulled up beneath a scarf, her eyes were wide with surprise, her mouth was open with delight, she was walking backward as the Jeep moved, holding onto the roof. “Avinoam, stop,” Ido shouted. He leapt out. “Alice! Oh Alice!”

  “Ido, it is you!”

  She leapt onto him, wrapped her legs around his waist so that he staggered back against the Jeep. She was laughing and planting kisses all over his face. Her three friends stood in surprise.

  When he disengaged from her lips and she slid off him Ido could barely speak through his smile. “Alice, oh God, I’m so happy to see you. What are you doing here? I thought you were in Haifa.”

  “I was, but now they’ve sent us here.” She nodded over her shoulder at her friends. “We’ve come to help.”

  Ido smiled at them, a boy and two girls, foreign-looking. “We’re all volunteers from kibbutzim. We met in Rambam. Oh, Ido, thank God you are safe.” She tapped his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his legs. “You are, aren’t you? You’re not hurt?”

  “No, no, we’re just checking on our mates.” He took her hand and pulled her aside. “Let me look at you. It’s only been a week since I saw you. What, eight days? It seems like a year.” He hugged her again, stroked her hair, and her face, and kissed each eye. “God, I miss you, I need you. How was it? In Rambam?”

  “It was everything. It was horrible, it was wonderful, it was sad, but in a weird way. Boys with terrible wounds, but alive. Nobody knew what to feel. So we just helped. I wrote letters, I held their hands, I helped families find their men. I felt emotions I never knew existed. We have so much to talk about. But who cares about me. You? What happened to you?”

  “Let’s not talk about it. Not yet. It was terrible. At least we won.” He clasped her to him, his breath tickled her neck, his chest rose and fell against her breast. He stared into the distance, seeing nothing at all, clinging to her thin frame as if to a sapling in a storm. She felt him tremble and shudder and held him tightly, wanting to comfort him, while tears rolled down her cheeks. She had seen boys with terrible wounds, but knew now not all wounds can be seen.

  At last they unfolded and returned to her friends. The volunteers were crowded around Avinoam, tall with black curls, big-chested, in combat boots and uniform, his Uzi strapped to his shoulder, a pistol in his belt. His eyes had their old sparkle. He looked at Ido with a smi
rk. “Meet Birgitte,” he said. “She’s from Denmark.”

  PETER and ARIE

  RAFAH, GAZA

  June 10, 1967

  Ido had found Alice, but Peter was still searching for Arie. The only news, which had not yet been officially announced, was the worst: Chaim Peled, KIA. The soldier who had escaped the tank with Arie Nesher had been found buried in a trash heap, shot, battered, with a slit throat.

  The ambulance helicopter with Peter aboard followed the coast south until Gaza where it cut east, fast and low, to land in the newly occupied Arab town of Khan Younis, deliver medical supplies, and pick up more wounded. All the pilots knew was that the morose passenger they dropped off was a senior Mossad official. From the landing pad he rode in an armored personnel carrier to brigade headquarters in a Rafah schoolyard. Rows of APCs and Jeeps were lined up before the bullet-pocked white building, while soldiers maintained a perimeter around the four corners of the complex. Snipers on rooftops surveyed the area with binoculars, tanks blocked the streets, paratroopers piled their equipment for redeployment.

  Peter hurried to the commander’s office, past an inner courtyard where lines of handcuffed Arab men sat in rows, heads bowed under the beating sun, waiting to be summoned by Shin Bet interrogators.

  “Peter Nesher!” Colonel Uri sprung from behind his desk. “I didn’t know it was you coming. Why Mossad’s interest?”

  “It’s been a long time,” Peter said, extending his hand. “And Mossad isn’t interested, I should make that clear. I am. Arie Nesher is my brother.”

  The Colonel, unshaven and weary, looked hard at Peter, nodding with pursed lips. “I see. The Arie Nesher.”

  Peter handed him a folder. “Here are the files of seven members of Fatah, they all live in Rafah, terrorists. I have a hunch they may know where he is, they may even be holding him.”

  Uri went to the door and called out, “Get Ben-Tsion.” He turned to Peter. “He’s the Shin Bet chief down here, he’ll pick them up, if they’re still here. Most of the men have run.”