Next Year in Israel

by Sarah Bridgeton

  No one said anything.

  “Fifty jumping jacks, everyone. Ben’s canteen is empty, and he is not allowed to… talk in ear.”

  Ben counted as we jumped.

  Behave, Mia mouthed to him.

  “You two are disgusting,” Jordyn mumbled.

  “Make it seventy-five for the one who is talking.”

  I closed my eyes. The kfar was a palatial resort compared to the dump we were in.

  Yaron adjusted the shoulder strap holding his machine gun. “Anyone who talks will scrub toilets. Line up.”

  I followed Mia and Jordyn to a jeep-like vehicle waiting for us. We kept quiet during the ride, and it was kind of eerie. What could we have said anyways? It’s a nice night. Boy, this is fun.

  “Down on ground and crawl,” Yaron commanded in the pitch-black area after we had parked and gotten out of the jeep.

  I felt dirt on my ankles.

  “Stand up,” Yaron yelled.

  The wind froze my entire body.

  “Down on the ground again.”

  I was tired, and Yaron was wearing me down.

  “Stand up. Walk in line.”

  As we got up, Mia’s eyes glanced at Jordyn and me for a second. I wanted to say something supportive like, ‘We’ll get through this together.’

  “He’s a jerk,” Jordyn said.

  “Yeah,” Mia said. “Hate it here. At least we’re in this together.”

  Jordyn nodded.

  What was she? Our friend?

  “No talking,” Yaron yelled.

  It was quiet until he stopped walking twenty minutes later. “I am trying to capture you. You have one minute to hide.”

  Mia, Ben, and I ran down a hill behind crooked trees and sat in a wide damp ditch. Ben lit a cigarette.

  I thought about Avi’s brother. I hadn’t met Ilan because he was in the army. Avi had told me almost everyone completed military service in Israel, starting at age eighteen. I was lucky compared to Ilan. I didn’t have to join the army.

  Mia tilted her head toward the starless sky. A deer darted in front of us.

  Ben stood up and paced with his cigarette hanging from his mouth. Leaves rustled as I smelled Ben’s smoke. He pointed at Mia and me.

  We lay down in the ditch and listened. Ben put out his cigarette and joined us, his head facing Mia’s.

  There was a faint tap from Sergeant Yaron’s boots as he tiptoed.

  My heart thudded.

  The tiptoeing stopped. He knew where we were.

  Mia and Ben held hands.

  If I had a gun, would I be ready to fire? Would I freak out and be captured? I saw Yaron’s scuffed boot in front of us. He gripped the shoulder strap, holding the gun away from us. “You should have split up. Go to the jeep.”

  “There’s safety in numbers,” Ben said. “If we had weapons, we could have ambushed you.”

  ~ * * * ~

  “Yahoo,” Jordyn said the next morning. Her left eye was just about swollen shut. “I’m sick.” Leah lay on her bed, eyes shut, listening to her iPod. She loved classical music.

  I smiled. “Glad it worked. I can do a good sicko.”

  “Like you helped me pull off the sprained ankle,” Mia said.

  I took a bow. “I carried your books and kept my mouth shut. What more could you want in an accomplice?” I moved my index finger toward Jordyn’s eye. “May I?”

  “Go ahead,” Jordyn said.

  I dabbed the yellow gunk in her eye, then touched my right eye.

  “I’m going to be excused,” she sing-songed. “Want me to spit in your water?”

  “Please.”

  “What’s on tap for today?” Mia said.

  “Blood, guts, and glory,” I said as Jordyn walked over to Leah’s bed and tapped Leah on the shoulder. Leah immediately sat up and took off her headphones.

  “What are they doing today?” Jordyn asked, assuming she’d continue to be excused.

  “Picking up trash around the base and doing an obstacle course. You’re going to the medic.” Leah eyed her paperback on the end of the bed.

  Jordyn dabbed her eye with her sleeve. “I wish I didn’t have to miss it.”

  ~ * * * ~

  “We’re almost free,” Jordyn said on our last morning. I frowned at my clear eyes in her compact mirror. How irritating that Jordyn got a free pass using my advice, but I didn’t. “I didn’t rub your eye enough,” I said.

  Mia wobbled the metal bed frame. “Stop checking yourself every two minutes.”

  I peeked down at her as she went through her duffel bag. “Don’t watch me if it annoys you. Getting your phone? Your parents would be happy to know you’re learning how to shoot a gun.”

  Mia wagged her pinky. “If we can survive Gadna, we can do anything in life.”

  I fake-sniffled. “Very profound.”

  “That was nice of Jordyn to try to get you sick,” Mia said.

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “There must be something in the food.”

  Mia fiddled with her earlobe. “Weird, she’s usually mean.”

  “Frenemies unite.” I swung my arm up.

  “Seriously,” Mia said. “She told me to keep going on the run.”

  I pulled myself up, away from Mia’s bunk. Jordyn’s niceness was a by-product of her wanting to get out of boot camp.

  Leah lifted her nose from one of her paperbacks. “Report to the front trailer, loves.”

  “I don’t have to go,” Jordyn said. “La. La. La.”

  “Jordyn too,” Leah said.

  “I’m contagious,” Jordyn said. “I might contaminate the gun.”

  “Jordyn stays with me,” Leah said.

  I was gonna shoot a gun? Me? I hated squashing bugs and always cried during movies when someone got shot even if the character was cruel and deserved it.

  At the front trailer, Yaron stood in front of a blackboard and a dismantled M16 arranged on the table. “We will go to the range after I demonstrate for the last time.” He had drawn a picture of the gun with labeled parts on the chalkboard.

  “Where do you hit on the target?” Ben asked obnoxiously.

  “Your ten rounds have been reduced to eight. You want to lose more bullets?”

  My stomach clenched. All eyes were on Yaron even though he had gone over the M16 the day before.

  “One last time about this part.” Yaron held up a rectangular aluminum attachment. “This is the magazine that holds the ammunition. Keep your body straight when you fire. Any questions?”

  Mia raised her hand. “What if we don’t want to shoot?”

  Yaron smiled. “You don’t have to.”

  “Can she give her bullets to someone else?” Ben asked.

  “No.”

  I lined up behind Jake. “Are you going to shoot?” he whispered, turning around to eye me.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Don’t be scared. You’ll always wonder about it.”

  Jake did have a point. My opportunities to shoot a gun were slim. No one I knew at home had a gun, and I didn’t plan on joining the army.

  Mia stepped on my heel. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re going to fire an M16 wearing a peace sign?” I pointed to her sweatshirt.

  “It’s only an exercise.”

  “Hypocrite,” I said.

  “No talking. You now have seven rounds.”

  Jake glared at us.

  At the firing range, ten M16s were propped up from the ground on bipods.

  “The first ten of you, lie down and put on the ear protectors. Do not fire or get up until I say. Put your head down when you run out of bullets.”

  I stretched out on my stomach. The M16 was longer than my arm and lighter than I expected, for being such a powerful life-altering stick. Wearing the ear protectors made it seem unrealistic, as if we were at the range for a leisurely day of practice.

  “Aim.”

  My stomach lurched. I lined up the carry grip handle with the thingy in the middle and aimed a
t the bull’s-eye on the other side of the field.

  “Fire!”

  I pulled the trigger; the gun vibrated; my finger recoiled. It sounded like popcorn after a minute in the microwave. It felt surreal, as though I was in a dream and didn’t really fire. I moved my head down for a second, looked up, and pulled the trigger again. My hands shook until I put down my head.

  Afterwards Yaron handed us our targets. Mine didn’t have any marks on it.

  Mia waved her target in my face. “Look. I hit the bull’s eye.” She crumpled up the paper. “That’s the first and last time I use a gun.”

  Chapter 15

  “YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO music?” Avi asked as soon as I arrived at his place for our make-up visit.

  I smelled sautéed garlic and tomatoes. “Ken.”

  He took my hand. Tova snapped in Hebrew as we walked to his room. It was the same tone as Mom’s “Put away your folded laundry” nag.

  Avi didn’t answer her.

  The music was already on in his room. I sat down on his bed. “What did she say?”

  “To keep the door open.”

  My heart raced as he turned up the volume and sang the Hebrew chorus to me. It was the same folksy rap-sounding Israeli music that he had played for me before. He chucked the CDs piled next to me on the floor and sat down. I smiled because quiet Avi was singing to me. The old me was gone, and I had finally become the popular girl. “Do you like the lyrics or beat better?”

  “Beat.” Avi pumped his hand in the air. “It’s fast and modern.”

  “I like the lyrics,” I said happily. “They give the beat a story.”

  “Ken, they do,” he said.

  “Rebecca, Avi.” Tova hollered. “Come eat.”

  At the table, Yosi held up a fork. “Mazleg.”

  “What’s the English word?” Tova asked over her shoulder while stirring a pot on the stove.

  “Fork.” Not another language lesson.

  “Good,” Avi said.

  “Good,” Yosi mimicked Avi’s English.

  I smiled at Yosi. He was trying to make me feel at home.

  Tova handed me a plate of linguine with red sauce. “Your grandmother told me you like pasta.”

  “Thanks.” It was very nice of her to cook me one of my favorites.

  “She called to check up on you,” Tova said.

  “I e-mailed her that I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.” Grandma’s call didn’t surprise me. She was the type who reminded everybody how to mind their manners. Grandma had nothing to worry about. I hadn’t done anything impolite at Tova’s house.

  “What have you learned at the kfar recently?” Tova asked, teacher-like.

  “We went to Jerusalem.” I didn’t mention Gadna because I thought it might upset her, since she worried about Avi’s brother getting hurt.

  “Ilan’s there,” she said. “Where did you go?”

  “The Holocaust museum.” I pictured the museum’s steel sculpture that looked like connected skulls and bones.

  “Yosi’s father is a survivor from Poland. He jumped out of a cattle car when it slowed down on the way to Auschwitz. A childless couple found him hidden in the bushes and pretended he was their son.”

  My stomach knotted up. Jerusalem was supposed to keep the conversation light.

  “After losing his family and home, he wanted to start a new life away from those who had betrayed him.” She frowned. “He lost everything. A lot of survivors came here to be together after all the death.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “Never again.”

  She didn’t have to say anything else. After seeing the memorial, I understood how she felt. Nobody had bothered to stop Hitler before millions of people were killed, and if another Hitler came around, the same thing would happen. We couldn’t count on anyone standing up for us except ourselves. “Was your family in the Holocaust?” I asked.

  Her frown stayed plastered on like a mask. “My family’s from Spain. They decided to come after their house was vandalized.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Enough of the past. Time to speak Hebrew?”

  Avi twirled linguine on his fork. “Lo, English for Rebecca.”

  “Hebrew,” I answered and remembered how to ask for water. “Mayim, be׳vakasha.”

  Tova poured me a glass of water.

  After dinner, in Avi’s room I asked, “Do they talk about the past a lot?”

  “Lo. That was the first time in years.”

  I heard the TV turn on and Yosi talking in Hebrew. Tova laughed boisterously.

  Avi shuffled though his music. “They cannot see in here from the couch.”

  “Really?” I thought of the day he had kissed me at the beach, then walked over to him. Jake and I weren’t anything but friends, and the kiss with Avi on the beach had been really nice. “What do you want to hear?” Avi asked.

  “Anything.”

  He put his hands on my hips. I moved closer until I almost touched him. His hands slid over to my waist and pulled me in.

  “Avi, Rebecca,” Tova yelled from the living room couch. “Saturday Night Live is on.”

  I kept my body still, not wanting to pull back. Avi didn’t move either.

  “Do you want to watch it?” she asked.

  “Lo,” Avi shouted.

  I stepped back, feeling warm and dizzy.

  Avi’s blue eyes shone. “She’s going to ask again.” He turned around. “Who’s hosting it?”

  “Chris Rock,” she hollered.

  “It’s a repeat,” he yelled and sat down on his desk chair backwards.

  I listened to rain pelt on the window. “We went to Gadna.”

  He half-smiled at me. “Americans went to Gadna?”

  I thought of Mia and me running around base camp on our punishment laps and laughed.

  “Now you know what we do for our country. Did you like the night hike?”

  “Hated it. Tried to get out of it.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. Look.” He held up a CD that had been missing from his collection.

  “Your friend returned it?”

  “Lo, I bought it myself. He’s still my… What did you call him?”

  “Ex-friend. Did he go to Gadna with you?”

  “Ken.”

  “Were you friends with him at Gadna?” I thought of Jordyn.

  “Ken. We had to help each other to get through it.”

  “So, you’re friends with him now?”

  “Lo.”

  I nodded. I had initially thought it trivial to end a friendship over a CD, but I was no longer so sure. Avi asked for his CD several times and was just standing up for himself.

  “If he says sorry and returns it,” Avi said. “I’ll give him a second chance. He has to prove he’s sorry.”

  It seemed fair. I opened one of Avi’s textbooks.

  “It’s history,” he said. “The first page is at the end.”

  I flipped to the back of the book. “We’ve learned about several wars with Arab countries. What do you think of them?”

  He nodded as if he expected the question. “It’s the terrorists I hate.”

  I sympathized with him. Who didn’t hate terrorists? I pulled a CD from my backpack and nudged his leg. “I brought you something.”

  “It’s yours?” he asked. It was Ben’s CD, a mix of hip-hop and classic rock songs.

  “Mia’s boyfriend lent it to me. Do you want to listen to it?”

  “Ken. Thanks.”

  “You can listen, but can’t keep. I always return stuff.”

  “Is Ben Israeli?”

  “His parents moved from Haifa to Miami when he was a baby, because his mom thought America would be safer. She was tired of war and terrorism. That was before 9/11.”

  He frowned.

  “Ever think of living somewhere else?” I asked.

  “Never. This is my home.”

  “Aren’t you scared of being blown up?”

  He kicked my leg. “When they bomb my store, I’ll shop there the next day with
a hundred other Israelis to send them the message that they don’t scare me. Isn’t it the same for you?”

  Chapter 16

  “WHAT WAS MIA’S EXCUSE FOR not coming?” Jake asked as we walked past a kiosk overflowing with newspapers. We were in Leah’s neighborhood, on our way to her apartment for Shabbat, because she had invited us for a weekend visit.

  “She just said no.” Good thing Jake was with me. I was curious about Leah, but I didn’t think I could get through a weekend at her house alone, because Mia predicted that Leah prayed all weekend.

  “I’m your second string,” Jake said. “No Avi.”

  Mia had said Avi was my boyfriend after I told her about my weekend at his house, but I was confused. Not only had his parents made him keep the door to his room open when I was there, but they wouldn’t let us do anything alone all weekend, so we hadn’t kissed again. And he became less and less talkative as the weekend wore on. I knew that he was annoyed at his parents, but it felt like something else was wrong between us. Then there was the question of why he hadn’t called me or come to visit me at the kfar. It just didn’t feel like he was my boyfriend.

  “I’m shocked you want to spend Shabbat with Leah,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked. “She’s modern Orthodox.”

  “You don’t seem like the religious type.”

  “What type am I?”

  “No comment.” Back home, I would have labeled him a jock jerk, but it was becoming harder to peg him one way.

  He looked at Leah’s directions. “It’s the white building across the street. Have you ever been to an Orthodox house?”

  “Nah.” We didn’t know any Orthodox Jews at home.

  “One Orthodox tradition is sex on Shabbat.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that all you think about?”

  “Five hundred times a day. How often do you think about it?” We stopped at the crosswalk. “Come on, Becca. Tell me.”

  “What makes you the Orthodox expert?” I said.

  “My uncle’s Orthodox. What do you think about sex on Shabbat?”

  We walked across the street. “You have a one-track mind. Can you talk about anything else?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “See, you can’t.”

  We passed a woman walking her dog. He paused on the sidewalk.

  “Is this Leah’s building?” I stopped walking.