by Meyer Levin
“Nu?” Feigel said as Yankel hesitated to mount.
“The Evil One take them all!” Yankel spat. Let it be Russia, let it be Eretz Yisroel, where was a Jew safe from pogroms?
And thus the long procession of wagons left Mishkan Yaacov and strung itself up the hillside. At the head rode Galil, and it was Gidon who guarded the tail end. As the Chaimovitch wagon ascended the hill, Mati, sitting backward, tried to keep his eye still on their house. The wound throbbed in his back, and on the front side, his heart seemed to pulse with the same pain. Why were they leaving? Was it all because of him, because of his fight with Abdul? Something was wrong in this world of people, and something was wrong in the place where they lived, if Turks could come and tell them they must leave; yet it was hurtful to leave this place, even if Reuven was still close by in the kvutsa, and Leah and Gidon kept saying they would all soon return to their house. Mati could no longer ask anyone why they were going away because they answered him only with the lies they had for children. And besides Mati sensed that even the big ones themselves didn’t know. The Turkish masters were ordering them, just as they, the big ones, ordered him.
At the top of the ridge Menahem waited to meet the wagons. They moved past him downward into the valley of Yavniel where all was relatively safe, and behind the last wagon there came Gidon. But as the last wagon started its descent, Gidon no longer followed. He remained on the ridge, looking down on Mishkan Yaacov, deserted except for the Turkish Bimbashi and his men.
Menahem called to him.
“I’m staying here,” Gidon said. “I’m staying on watch.”
Menahem did not need an explanation. “I’ll come right back to you as soon as they’ve reached Yavniel,” he said. “Gidon, take no risk. This is not for you alone.”
Not far to the left were the caves. Did he have water? Gidon patted his gourd. Still Menahem hesitated, but a rear guard was needed on the wagons, and this young ox would not be budged. “Don’t worry, you’ll find me here,” Gidon said, and Menahem rode off.
Only two hours passed before Gidon saw movement on the far side of the river’s loop where the crossing was to Golan. He placed his rifle firmly, steadied on the rock. His position was a small fortress. How perfectly he saw them, a group of five horsemen, sent to reconnoiter. Two remained on their side, while three crossed in file. They would bring back word whether to attack and plunder the deserted settlement.
The excitement in his blood now, the slight beating in his head, was not of the hunt. It was more, he knew, and other. A kind of grief was in him that the world was so ordered, yet he felt nothing of the blind killing hatred he had expected. He was part of the order of the world as he lay here watching the approach of murderers.
Then the first rider was at the maximum point from where he would turn to slip toward the village. The fading light was on him perfectly, he was as though picked out, with all else fading away.
Gidon fired and, as he was inserting another cartridge, the Zbeh doubled like a broken branch from his mount. The second rider plunged forward, and it took two shots to destroy him; the third had turned back and was already halfway across the stream before Gidon stopped firing. Wild shots were coming toward him, but the riders would not attack. He had done his deed.
Something was relieved in him, for Joe Kleinman, for Alter Pincus and Shaikeh, but the deeper dismal weight in his heart, the sorrow and sickness for the way the world was had only become heavier. Here he had done for the first time what he had wondered about and feared he must one day do: kill man. An impulse to clamber down, to gaze at the kill, touch, know, quickly vanished. And an impulse of weeping within himself, as though a piece of his own being, his human faith, had been shot to death, remained. Not on your Bar Mitzvah do you become a man, a son of the commands of doing what is right, but to become a man there is perhaps another day, a bar mavet, when you must become also a son of evil and of killing.
Gathering everything, the ejected cartridges as well, leaving no sign, though they would nevertheless know the place, Gidon mounted, riding toward Yavniel.
Menahem met him on the way. “They came? How many?”
“Two fell.” And he told the details.
After a moment, Menahem said, “So you have hunted man.”
Gidon nodded and their eyes met in gloom.
12
THE SETTLERS of Yavniel were understanding and generous. For a fortnight the families of Mishkan Yaacov were with them, only a few going on to Mescha. Every kitchen was crowded with women, every barn with sleepers, and talk, rumors, plans filled the time. Menahem and two more of the Shomer went off each day to reconnoiter. The abandoned settlement stood untouched.
Perhaps in their own way the Zbeh had counted up that in their ghoum a sufficient revenge had been reached. If Kleinman was to be counted, and he was certainly no longer living, then it was still they who had killed the more, even counting the last two who had fallen. And they had the herd.
One day a sheikh of the Tabor region, related to the Houranis of Nazareth where Menahem had lately visited, and himself a notable long friendly with the settlers of Yavniel, rode in for a visit with their mukhtar, the elder Kolodnitzer, reputed to be a sage. When coffee had been sipped, and remarks made about the weather, the crops, the health of each and his family, the sheikh remarked on the great value of friendly relationships and peace among neighbors, and the sage replied that nothing on earth was to be more highly desired or cherished, recalling how Father Abraham had been a man of peace, and quoting the psalm, What is so good and so pleasant as brothers dwelling together. Peaceful friendship was worth gold and more than gold, the sheikh remarked, and Kolodnitzer concurred, adding that life too was worth more than gold. The sheikh said, so was honor.
A few men of Mishkan Yaacov were summoned to take coffee and join in the conversation, which centered on the value of honor, friendship, of a fine horse, and on tales of enemies who had settled their differences and become as brothers.
In the end it was said that a dead horse was nevertheless not like a dead man, though a good horse is better than an evil man. Yet a horse can be replaced. Though the sheikh told a touching tale of a tribesman who so loved his mount that when the faithful animal was wounded in a fight and had to be destroyed, the master turned his pistol against his own heart and died as well. Horse and master were buried together and their burial place became a shrine. But better than a feast of mourning is a feast of friendship. A feast, a sulha, erases bad memories and replaces them with memories of enjoyment. Indeed the sulha should be one that would be long remembered, a true feast of peace and friendship with provisions of twenty whole sheep. This became reduced to twelve, since the finest geese and poultry would be added without number, and all else without measure, for who can set a measure on love among good neighbors living together in peace?
As to the vanished farmer Kleinman, the sheikh took a vow on the heads of his own sons and grandsons that not a glimpse of the American’s steed had been seen in all Galilee, and when word was known of the man or of his horse, it would instantly be brought to them.
And so wagons were loaded again and the people of Mishkan Yaacov, all but five families, returned over the heights of Yavniel toward their village. From the ridge they saw it—still only half believing, they saw the entire settlement lying intact before them, neither burnt nor demolished, and perhaps not even too badly despoiled.
In each house small things had been looted, surely by the Turkish gendarmes; here an entire iron cookstove and there a set of curtains that should not have been left behind, and in one house, even a chamberpot! Still, much worse had been expected. Also, Issachar Bronescu had returned from Tiberias where, he said, Azmani Bey had treated him respectfully, keeping him in no prison but as a guest in his own house! They had had many talks.
About the ways of the Shomer, the Kaymakam had great curiosity, but of course Bronescu knew nothing of their secrets and could tell him nothing. The brothers of Fuleh, Azmani Bey related, had been g
reat heroes to their cousins across the Jordan. Their sisters, renowned beauties, were married to powerful families in the Zbeh. Yet, Azmani’s friend, the Kaymakam of Amman, had made strong inquiries for the missing herd, and had had interesting talks with the elders of the tribe. Perhaps things would now remain quiet. There need be no more blood—though the herd had best be forgotten. To search for it would be of no use, and would only bring more trouble. Let it be a price of peace. Too many on both sides had been killed. And indeed the Zbeh with their flocks had used, at times of scant rain in their region, to come over to this side of the river, and now complained that old grazing grounds were gone.
To Azmani Bey’s house had come Jacques Samuelson, the Baron’s highest representative, and he had given assurance that loans for new cattle would be quickly provided.
“Loans!” cried Yasha Janovici. “And my burned crops?” But others quieted him. “Who tells you to be in a hurry to pay off the Baron’s loans?”
Meanwhile Arab women began coming down from Dja’adi selling goat’s milk, lebeniya and eggs, and life resumed.
Menahem himself came for a time as shomer, and to Leah he related how Zev had been summoned to Gilboa and judged. Not only had he used firearms with needless and unwarranted haste in the scuffle with Dja’adi, but it was his loose tongue that had set the Zbeh to searching the sea for the two bandits of Fuleh, who were kinsmen. Something, it was said, had been found in the Kinnereth; though what they had found was not yet known. Zev’s loose talk had brought all this disaster. For the Zbeh had watched, and picked the moment for their revenge.
Angrily Zev had raged at them all; cowards and compromisers, they would yet learn that his was the way, the only way to deal with Arabs, blood for blood. Only then would Jews be respected. The judgment: Zev was brave but temperamentally unstable and unsuited for the Shomer. Expelled, he had gone off to the south. It was said he was forming a watchman’s group in the outermost settlements, near Beersheba.
“But his wife and child are here.”
Menahem supposed that in time Zev would send for them.
Of Gidon, Menahem said, it was thought best that he should leave the area for some time, as it was dangerous for him to remain. Though the Zbeh could not be certain who had stopped their raid when the village was empty, still such things had an uncanny way of becoming known.
—But if Gidon went off, Yankel growled, what of the farm? How was he to manage the work, all alone?
Schmulik was nearly of the strength of a man, and Leah would stay on and help, and as the stable was nearly empty, things could be managed.
Where should Gidon go? Should he join the Shomer, then?
Though he had proven himself, he was still young, Menahem said. But if he wanted to become a watchman, doubtless in a year he would be accepted.
It was Reuven, coming over on the Sabbath, who made another suggestion. Gidon had a natural way with horses and mules; why should he not apprentice himself to a veterinary for a year or two and learn the profession. Even if he later joined the Shomer, this knowledge would make him doubly valuable. This appealed to Gidon. Inquiries would be made of a veterinary in Jaffa.
At the end of that week, only a few days before the sulha was to take place, an Arab boy spoke to Schmulik when he came down to the river to water the mules. For gold, he would show where the cowboy’s body could be found.
Schmulik rushed to Gidon in the fields with the news, and Gidon at once came and questioned the boy. He was not the one who had found the hat, nor was he from Dja’adi but from one of the stray Bedouin tents on the way to Tiberias.
La, he did not know who had done the killing of the cowboy.
—But he had seen?
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Perhaps horsemen.” “Horsemen? Who?” Gidon demanded. In sudden terror the boy cried out—Not of his own people! Not they!
It took a coin to start him again. Not from his own tents, that was certain, but then of what people?
—La, he did not know.
—Strangers? Just what had he seen? How many?
—Two. They had leaped at the horse and dragged off the Yahud.
—Had there been a fight?
—Yes, a fight.
—And then?
He was silent. Gidon refrained from seizing him, shaking him. “Hear me. No harm will come to you. No one will know what you have told. Only I.”
The boy gazed at him uncertainly. “It is worth gold.”
“Gold. I have said it.”
The words came in a tumble. With knives they had killed the cowboy and thrown the body in the river.
“Where in the river?”
That he knew. He could point out the place to them. And the little teasing smile appeared, and the eyes looked away. First the gold.
Hurrying back to the village, Gidon sought out Menahem.—From those few tents on the way to Tiberias. Menahem knew them.
—Perhaps after all the lad’s own father was mixed up in it? Gidon wondered.
Menahem doubted it. “The ones in those tents—they live on what they get from Jews. Their women clean in the hot baths.” Let the boy be paid a few coins to begin with, and more only if he disclosed the body.
Returning with Gidon to where the boy waited, Schmulik beside him, Menahem showed in his hand a whole golden napoleon. The boy led them to the banks, where the Jordan flowed from the Kinnereth. “There,” he pointed to a clump of willows. “There they threw his body into the water. I swear by my mother, I saw it with my own eyes.” And he made as though he would take an eye out, were he not speaking the truth. “You can burn my tongue with fire.”
It was by the secluded cove that Yankel had used as his mikveh. Within his head Menahem felt a thudding, a pulsing, as though the dark secret of the universe were about to be revealed before him, and yet he would not understand it. He himself was as nothing, a scrap in the world, and his hands had touched some awful mystery. All was secret and unknowable unless by some revelation, for here he stood and Gidon stood beside him seeing what he saw, yet to him something unutterable, a balance of evils in the depths of creation, was being half-revealed, while Gidon could not know.
Schmulik had shed his shirt and trousers; diving into the water, he swam along the bottom but saw nothing. At last he rose and climbed out, shaking his head.
Vowing still more passionately, the Arab boy even offered back the first coppers that he held in his hand. The body could not have drifted, no, he had seen them tie rocks to it.
“Rocks?” Menahem echoed.
“Heavy rocks.”
“Then why do you say so only now?” Gidon demanded. “Each time you speak, you saw more. Perhaps you were close enough to see who tied the rocks?”
No, no, he had been afraid to come closer.
“Show us exactly where.”
“Here, here.” He stood by the water’s edge.
Mati had appeared. When Gidon had come for Menahem, he had known. At once, without a word from them, he understood all that was happening and would have dived into the water but Gidon forbade him. Schmulik went in again, exactly at the point the Arab boy showed. Among mud and smooth stones on the bottom he suddenly touched the edge of a rough feeling rock, and scooping with his fingers around it, felt that it was large, and sunken in. Then alongside it, partly under the mud and as though one with the mud, his fingers touched another substance and instantly withdrew. Even he, who had been taught by Gidon to clean out the entrails of a slaughtered animal, now drew back, and quickly emerged.
Both Menahem and Gidon returned with him into the water, there where he led them. When Menahem put his hand to the substance, it was as though something locked itself tight in his breast; the two groping and striving ends that had touched were at last locked together, and he was sealed within himself. To what purpose he did not know, but a design was being carried out in him that was not as in the lives of others.
Laboring together, going several times up for breath a
nd down again, they at last freed the body and brought it to the surface. Where the large rocks had been tied at the neck and at the feet, the ropes were imbedded in the decay, and in the water Gidon cut them away from the bluish bloated form. The corpse rose and floated of itself between Gidon and Menahem, while Schmulik climbed out onto the bank and with a broken-off eucalyptus branch drew it near.
Gidon, himself sickened, caught the long solemn gaze of Mati, a gaze bewildered yet comprehending. “Take Mati home,” he said to Schmulik.
“Say nothing yet,” Menahem instructed the boy.
Schmulik was reluctant to go, for had he not discovered the body? And here was a matter of full manhood. Though his insides churned, though the taste of worse than bile was in his throat and mouth, he would not take his eyes off the corpse as the men turned it and counted the knife-gashes where the flesh still held, rotted, formless. Even in the hands—Kleinman must have seized at their daggers with his bare fingers. And the front side of the head, what had been the face—one could not look.
“Go away!” Gidon cried angrily to Mati to cover his sobs, and Mati retreated a small distance.
So they covered the form as much as they could with Menahem’s dark shirt, and the Bedouin boy stood before Gidon with outheld hand for his money. “I have told you the truth.” Menahem laid the gold coin on the boy’s palm and he fled.
She was strong, Chava Kleinman insisted, strong, strong. If Joe could die such a death, then she could bear to see it, and who could tell what would haunt her more, the sight of it or the guilt of an ultimate desertion? At last in Leah’s company she saw. She looked and looked until her eyelids slowly closed of themselves. Then the shroud was placed. The chevrah kadushah came, and the whole village followed.
