The blow so astonished the men that they forgot the torn banner, dropped their arms and stared at each other. Schwartz was ashamed of what he had done and Cullinane was stunned both by the blow and by the furiousness of the struggle, yet he was unable to control his loathing for the sign, so while Schwartz watched he returned to the wall and tore the banner to pieces. “Neither of us can afford hatred,” he said.
Impassively Schwartz watched the destruction of his sign, then said coldly, “I don’t hate anyone. I don’t intend insolence to decent men like Vilspronck. It’s just that I no longer give one good goddamn what you think about Jews. Either of you. For nineteen centuries well-intentioned Jews like me tried to accommodate ourselves to what people like you wanted. And where did it get us? We were attentive to kings and Popes. And what did they do in return? Now we’ve won our own land and we’re going to keep it. And what you or Vilspronck or the Pope or General de Gaulle thinks about it is of no concern to me. Not one little bit.”
Responding automatically Cullinane shot out his right fist and caught Schwartz on the point of the chin. Like an amazed oak that had paid no attention to the first chipping axe blows, the dark-skinned Jew tottered, then fell in a heap.
This was the first time Cullinane had ever knocked a man unconscious and he was appalled: “My God! I’ve killed him!” But to his relief Schwartz easily recovered, rose to one knee and rubbed his jaw.
“I suppose I deserved it,” he said. And as they walked back to the mess hall Cullinane lavished attention on him as if he were a sick child. Earnestly he said, “It does matter what we think … Vilspronck and men like me … because at the time of crisis we might be the ones who will rescue you.”
Schwartz paused to look at the eager Catholic and said, “For Jews it’s always the time of crisis. And no one ever rescues us.” But that night the two men ate together.
Next morning Vered flew in to Lod Airport on her return from Chicago. When she ran down the ramp like a bright little wren come back to resume control of the tree outside the kitchen, Cullinane thought: What an adorable person.
It had been his intention to ride back to Makor with Vered, so that he might propose again, but this was neatly forestalled by Eliav, who pulled her into his car and drove off, leaving Cullinane and Tabari to bother about the luggage. When Cullinane finally overtook them he and Tabari could see in the car ahead the pert figure of Vered speaking rapidly, interrupted now and then by some sharp rejoinder from Eliav, who kept pointing at her with his pipe stem, as if he were a college professor.
“You think this Cohen business will wreck the marriage?” Cullinane asked.
“Something’s wrecking it. And remember the particular job they’re offering him. He certainly couldn’t accept that job on Monday and marry a divorced woman on Tuesday.”
“What do you think of such rigmarole?”
“I take it seriously.”
“How can you?”
“By looking at history. For something like three hundred generations my family has lived in this area. And in that time we’ve seen a lot of people come and go. But the Jews hang on forever. Because they’ve had that tight body of God’s law binding them together. Today our boy Eliav, who was one of the heroes in the creation of this state, is trapped by the very law he helped preserve.”
“If he had any guts he’d get on the first plane to Cyprus and tell the government to go to hell.”
“John!” the Arab cried. “You’re talking like a liberal Catholic. If the Pope tried to hand you a deal like this Cohen-widow business, you’d ignore him and fly to Cyprus. As a Muslim so would I. But can’t you see the difference? Nobody on the outside is forcing Eliav to respect the ancient law. He did it to himself … by establishing Israel. I’m sure he didn’t intend to set up a state where such law would operate … but that’s what he’s done.” The two men relapsed into silence, which Tabari broke by predicting, “Within two weeks, John, you’re going to have a wife. That girl up there’s not going to marry Eliav.”
“You think not?” Cullinane asked hopefully.
“And then the real funny business begins. Out of sentiment you’ll probably want to marry Vered at the tell, with the kibbutzniks and old Yusuf as witnesses …”
“That would be ending the dig with a bang. You in robes giving the bride away!”
“I’d do it, too,” Tabari laughed. “But haven’t you heard? In Israel such weddings are forbidden.”
“What do you mean? I’d get papers from the American Embassy.”
“Completely impossible. The rabbis say that in Israel no Jew can marry a Christian. Never. So when you propose to little Vered, get yourself two airplane tickets to Cyprus, because you’ll never get married here.”
“Outrageous!” Cullinane cried. “When the Catholic Church tries a trick like this in Spain, the New York Times has front-page articles about it. You mean that I …”
“I’m in the same boat,” Tabari protested. “As a Muslim I couldn’t marry Vered, either, though I’d like to. We’d have to fly to Cyprus. Matter of fact I did … when I married my wife. She’s a Christian Arab. And Christians and Muslims aren’t allowed to intermarry either.”
“From the way you talk, half the people in Israel who want to get married fly to Cyprus. I don’t believe the rabbis issued these rules at all. I think the airlines did.”
In the forward car the conversation was brisk, with Vered saying, “You needn’t be so superior. There were many things about America I liked.”
“Did you see any American Jews?” Eliav asked.
“Yes. And some impressed me very much.”
“Such as?”
“Jews who run hospitals, and endow libraries, great art museums, universities. Of course, I also saw the fat, overdressed dowagers. Plenty of them. But somebody’s been giving us a very bum steer about the American Jew. He can be a most powerful person.”
“Would you want to live there?” Eliav asked.
“No. I want to live here … where I helped build a nation. And I want to live with you. And I want to get it all settled by the end of this week.”
“Teddy Reich’s meeting with the prime minister …”
“I don’t want Teddy Reich to be involved, or anyone else. Ilan, you’re to tell me now. Are we going to get married? When are we going to get married?”
“How can I decide until I hear what Teddy has to say?”
“I’ll help you,” Vered said primly, and she handed him a small slip of paper. “On Tuesday there’s an Air France plane to Cyprus. On Wednesday there’s Cyprus Airlines. On Thursday there’s B.E.A. And on Friday morning there’s El Al.”
“And on Saturday I suppose there’s something else.”
“There will be no Saturday … no Sunday … ever.” She folded her hands and kept her eyes straight ahead. When Eliav pointed at her with his pipe she was not looking.
“Is this an ultimatum?”
“The last plane that we will ever consider flies out of here Friday morning. If we aren’t on it …”
“You’d marry Cullinane? A non-Jew? And leave Israel? I don’t believe it.”
“There’s an easy test. It comes Friday morning.”
In silence Eliav drove toward Akko, then asked bluntly, “If I chucked the cabinet and took a teaching job … England … America … would you marry me?”
“Ilan,” she said softly, and her folded hands left her lap and clutched his forearm, “on the night Ilana died I should have taken over. When I went forward in Akko to save you, it wasn’t because you were a valuable soldier. You were a man, a splendid man, whom even then I loved.” She began to cry, and whispered, “We should have married sixteen years ago, but then I didn’t understand. Now I do. Make up your mind, Ilan. I’m proposing to you. Marry me now.”
Eliav kept his hands on the steering wheel and his pipe clenched between his teeth. Staring at the minarets of Akko he turned the car eastward along the Damascus road, and the moment when he should have made his deci
sion passed, and in various airports around the world the four planes that would fly that week to Cyprus tested their engines and were swept out by women wearing overalls. It was Monday.
When the archaeologists reached the dig the mood was autumnal: only Yusuf and his family of twelve worked at the job of closing down the installations and it was obvious that the old man was beginning to find himself isolated in Israel. Already his children were learning Hebrew and adopting kibbutz ways. His three wives were accommodating themselves to Israel, and the pregnant one was even going by herself to the Kupat Holim doctor to discover how to have a baby in a modern way. From their children the mothers were learning Hebrew, and the old patriarch was left alone, a man out of place in a world that he would never catch up with. His eleven underlings, once so subservient in Morocco, now assumed easy control of the family; no longer was he a man of authority, and as the years passed, the half-blind old man would grow in bitterness, while his new land stole from him his dignity, his language and his comprehension. On Tuesday the Air France plane took off for Cyprus and Morocco.
Ilan Eliav did not laugh at old Yusuf in his deepening solitude, for he felt himself to be in a comparable prison. Vered was proving unpredictably difficult; she still insisted upon an immediate answer. “The last plane leaves on Friday,” she warned. Wednesday came and Thursday, and B.E.A. made its flight. On Friday morning Cullinane, watching two people whom he cherished caught in such a vise, intruded against his own best interests; waiting till he found them together in the ceramics room, he joined them casually and said, “I’m not using a phrase when I say that what you two are doing to yourselves is breaking my heart. Eliav, if you decide to chuck the cabinet business, if you do fly to Cyprus, I will personally guarantee you work for ten years here at Makor and a teaching position in the Chicago area for the rest of your life. And I’m certain we can find Vered a job teaching archaeological ceramics. I make this offer because I don’t want you to reach decisions due to economic pressure.”
“I’ve been asked to teach at Oxford,” Eliav said dryly. “Knowing my background you must appreciate how enticing that would be.”
“I spoke only as a gesture of honor. I don’t want to marry Vered because you couldn’t …”
At this moment Vered was consulting her watch, and she seemed to be marking off the minutes one by one, until finally she rose and said quietly, “The last plane has gone.” Looking at Eliav she placed her hands in his and stood tiptoe to kiss him. “I wanted you so much,” she said haltingly.
She broke down and Eliav was unable to console her, so Cullinane, moving quietly, placed his arm about her shoulder and drew her away. “We’ll come back to Makor in the summers,” he said. “When he can, Eliav will leave Jerusalem and work with us.”
She pushed him away and looked at him as if he were a stranger. “What are you saying, John? I warned you I’d marry only a Jew.” Then, seeing the shock on his face, she muttered, “Damn, damn,” and ran from the room.
The meaning of her behavior did not become clear until three o’clock that afternoon when Paul J. Zodman arrived unannounced in Israel, jumped into a car supplied by the U.J.A. and roared up to Makor. Bursting into an end-of-week staff meeting he said crisply, “I stayed out of this for a week. To give Dr. Eliav the time he needed to make up his mind. He hasn’t married Vered. Neither has Cullinane. So I’m going to. Sunday morning.”
It was Cullinane who said the asinine thing. He stared at Vered, who had regained her composure and was again a little Astarte, her eyes modestly downcast, and then he looked at Zodman, expensively dressed in blue sharkskin, freshly shaved, committed and eager. “But you already have a wife!”
“Had,” Zodman corrected.
“Oh, my God!” Cullinane cried. “Is that why you sent me the cable ‘Come to Chicago’? You knew I couldn’t leave and you gambled that Vered could …” He saw Zodman and Vered smile, and to his surprise he cried, “Zodman, you’re a plain son of a bitch!”
The merchant brushed this aside and said congenially, “Look, John! I came here two months ago an unmarried man. I saw two other unmarried men, you and Eliav, allowing an adorable widow … So I brought her to Chicago to see if she’d marry me.” There was silence, after which Zodman said quietly, “She said ‘No.’ Wouldn’t even let me romance her. Said she was engaged to Eliav, and that if he wouldn’t marry her because of the Cohen business, she might marry you, John, and to hell with being a Jew.”
The group gasped, even Vered. She looked appealingly at Zodman and reminded him, “You were not to speak of that.”
But Zodman continued, “Somewhere along the line all of you have loused things up, so on Sunday, Vered and I are getting married and flying back to Chicago.”
Cullinane looked at the various people and said plaintively, “This dig is going to end just like Macalister at Gezer. My executive goes into the government. My pottery expert flies to Chicago. Tabari, you and I are going to dig this tell all by ourselves.”
“We’ll find you somebody,” Zodman joked; but as Eliav had pointed out, it was never easy to be a Jew, and the Chicago millionaire was about to discover this in a most painful way. He proposed to drive Vered that night to Jerusalem to get a permit for their marriage, but Eliav reminded him that he couldn’t drive because it was Shabbat. “Who gives a damn about Shabbat?” Zodman snapped, and he roared his borrowed car southward across the Galilee.
In Jerusalem no one would speak to him on Shabbat and on Sunday he was advised by the rabbinical board, “Sorry, Mr. Zodman, but you can’t get married in Israel.”
Without raising his voice he asked, “And why not?”
“Because we have decided that no divorce granted by an ordinary American rabbi can be trusted.”
“Rabbi Hirsch Bromberg is scarcely average.” Zodman had been on the committee that selected Bromberg.
“He’s not on the approved list,” a secretary reported.
Still keeping his voice low Zodman said, “I also have a perfectly good civil divorce from the state of Illinois.”
“Israel recognizes no civil divorce,” the rabbis replied.
“You mean to say that from this little room you’re going to judge all the Jews of the world?”
“In Israel it is our responsibility to say who can get married and who cannot,” the rabbis insisted.
In a very low voice Zodman asked, “And I can’t?”
“No.”
“I’m a large contributor to the Republican party,” Zodman said ominously. “I know Senator Dirksen and Paul Douglas.” His voice rose to a roar. “And I will not accept this insult.”
He stormed down to Tel Aviv to see the American ambassador—the state of Israel claimed Jerusalem as its capital and governed the country from there, but foreign powers, still holding that under the United Nations agreement all of Jerusalem was internationalized, insisted upon keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv and recognizing only it as the capital—but the legal aide to the ambassador assured him that the situation in Israel was precisely as the rabbis had explained it: there was no civil marriage; the local rabbis refused to recognize divorces issued by most American rabbis; and there was no conceivable way by which Zodman could marry Vered Bar-El. “Of course,” the young man suggested, “what many do is to fly to Cyprus. Such a wedding does leave the status of the children to be born of the marriage uncertain, insofar as Israel is concerned, but if you don’t plan to live in Israel …”
“Me? Live in Israel? Are you kidding?” And Zodman drove Vered back to Makor, cursing most of the way.
There it was agreed that Zodman and Vered must fly to Cyprus, as so many other Jewish couples were doing, and in the days required for Vered to clean up her work on the first year’s dig, the five leaders of the expedition had repeated opportunities for extended cross-questioning, during which Vered made her position clear: she was leaving Israel not because she liked large cars and air-conditioning, which her friends would charge, saying that she had sold out to the fleshp
ots of Egypt; not because she was afraid of the future, for she had given ample proof of her courage; not because her allegiance to a Jewish state had flagged, for she knew Israel to be the only tenable solution in a world where other sovereign states had been unable to protect the Jew or give him any honorable alternative to a homeland of his own; but rather because she felt that as a human being aged thirty-three she could no longer bear the burdens of a religion in the throes of becoming a state, with its military problems, social problems, economic problems and especially its complex religious problems. “I’ve done my part for Judaism,” she said without bravado. “I risked my life in more than a dozen battles, lost my husband, lost most of my friends, and I really do believe that I’m entitled to say, ‘Rachel, from now on you be the Jewess. Little Vered is just too damned tired.’ ”
Her words had such a startling effect on Eliav that Cullinane thought the new cabinet minister might strike her, but he clenched his hands and asked coldly, “How can you turn your back on all we fought for? Can’t you remember Safad?”
And Vered, speaking softly as one who has discovered her portion of truth, however meager, said, “Do I remember? Eliav, it seems to me we Jews spend our lives remembering, and I’ve suddenly discovered that I’m sick and tired of living in a land of remembrance. My year in Jerusalem begins with Rosh Hashana when I remember Abraham, four thousand years ago. Then comes Yom Kippur, and we remember everything. The Feast of the Booths and we remember the desert years. Like a great bronze bell tolling over the churches of Jerusalem, we tick off our days and remember our grief. Of course, there are a few happy days. Simhat Torah, Hanukkah, when we remember the victory of the Maccabees, Arbor Day for remembering trees. At Purim we remember Persia three thousand years ago and at Passover we remember Egypt even longer ago. Lag Ba Omer, Shavuot. And on the Ninth of Ab we mourn the loss of Jerusalem. When did we lose it? Two thousand years ago. We have special days to remember Herzl, students, socialists, the United Nations, the brave men who fell defending Jerusalem in 1948, and Independence Day. For years I dutifully remembered and thought it was natural to spend one’s life weeping over the dead past, uttering lamentations for things that happened so terribly long ago. It was a burden, but it was our special, inescapable Jewish burden and I accepted it.
The Source: A Novel Page 127
