by Tammar Stein
The major’s eyes narrow.
“Who are you?” he asks sharply. “Who let you in here?”
Beni starts to say something, but I quickly jump in. I don’t want him to mention Gideon’s name—it might get him into trouble.
“My brother needed to use the bathroom,” I say earnestly. “We didn’t touch anything.”
“What the hell?” the major says. “What do you think this is? Grand Central bus station? A tourist attraction? This is a closed base!”
By now several more doors have opened, people stepping out into the hallway to see what the commotion is about.
I hear a choked squeak of horror. “Motti, Beni! What are you still doing here?”
The major turns to see Dorit standing by one of the doors, looking appalled.
“Corporal, you know these boys?” he demands. His shiny scalp has grown flushed with sweat and frustration.
“Yes,” she says faintly. The major gives her a murderous look. “I didn’t let them in!” she protests. “I saw them earlier today. There was, ah . . . ah . . . a medical emergency.” She glares at me and Beni. “I think they’re feeling better now. They must have gotten lost on their way to the gate. Right?”
I am so grateful she doesn’t rat out Gideon.
“Yes,” I say. “We have a bad sense of direction!”
“For God’s sake,” the major says in exasperation. “I don’t have time for this. Get them out. Now!”
The sergeant lets us go and tugs at his uniform, straightening it with a yank. The tops of his ears are bright red. His eyes are narrowed in anger. He drops his steak-sized hand on the back of my neck, pulling me toward the door at the end of the hallway.
“I’ll walk them out,” Dorit says, to my great relief. The sergeant’s meaty hand tightens on the back of my neck for a moment. I feel like a bone fought over by two dogs. Dorit smiles at the sergeant. It’s similar to the flirty smile she gave my brother, but this one doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I was going to bring the colonel some coffee,” she says. “If they have any of those chocolate wafers left, I’ll bring you some.”
The sergeant hesitates. He outranks her and could order her to leave. But the bribe works. He lets me go.
Dorit grabs each of us by the upper arm. Her long nails dig into my flesh. Beni yelps. She doesn’t ease up. She marches us down the hallway and all but pushes us out the door.
“Can we have some chocolate wafers too?” I ask, just to tease her.
Dorit’s face is pink, her mouth turned down in fury.
Not far from us, the door of a nondescript hut flies open and dozens of soldiers come pouring out, ripping gas masks off their faces. Some of them are retching, vomiting in the dirt. All of them have tear-streaked faces, snot pouring down.
“One of those guys is your brother,” Dorit says coldly. “They’re finishing up their chem drill.”
“Why?” Beni asks, shocked. He swivels his head to get a better view, but Dorit keeps towing us toward the front gate.
“The Egyptians used poison gas in their last war in Yemen,” she says as she herds us to the front gate. “We have to be prepared for them to use it on us too. For the drills, we put masks on as a tear-gas grenade is pulled. To practice remaining calm in the face of terror.”
She lets those cold facts sink in. We’re at the front gate.
“We’re busy here,” she says. “Don’t ever try that stunt again.” Then she hurries away.
As we walk back to the bus stop, I realize I still have Gideon’s book in my pocket. Oh, well—he’s probably too busy to read it anyway.
I try to remember every detail of our time on the base: the tough-looking soldiers, the cool radios and jeeps. Even Gideon’s unit, racing out of the tear gas chamber, was everything I pictured military training would be like. I can’t stop smiling. But when I look over at Beni, he doesn’t share my excitement.
“That was a stupid idea,” he says angrily. “My heart’s still beating too fast. We could have gotten in big trouble!”
“It’s no big deal,” I tell him. “The worst part is that we’re not getting any chocolate wafers. That fat sergeant is going to eat all of them.” I figured that would make him smile, but he glares at me, as disapproving as any adult.
“I’m not really hungry anyway,” he says sullenly, looking at his feet and kicking at the dry dirt. A few scraggly wildflowers shiver under a cloud of dust.
I feel a stab of guilt. I hadn’t realized just how frightened Beni must’ve been. I forget sometimes that being six can be harder than being twelve. I take his hand.
We sit on the bench at the bus stop for half an hour. The sun cooks the black tar on the road, and shimmering waves of heat in the distance look like water. A mirage. I learned about mirage in school: a false vision, an illusion without substance.
“Don’t worry, Beni,” I tell him. “We’re okay.”
Our hands grow sweatier and sweatier, but neither one of us lets go.
Chapter Seven
More Bad News
It’s just my luck that when we return home, Mrs. Friedburg is sitting on a chair in a patch of sun next to the building’s front door.
“Motti! What are you doing? Why haven’t you been home, helping your mother?”
“She’s fine, Mrs. Friedburg,” I say, hustling my brother through the front door. “She doesn’t need me.”
“Listen to you, Mr. Know-It-All. Your father is gone, Gideon is gone. The world’s gone crazy. Yes, my boy, she needs you.”
I feel hot color wash up my face.
“Go,” she urges. “Help her, and don’t cause trouble.”
When Beni and I enter our apartment, I call out to my mom.
She’s sitting in front of the radio, nervously smoking. She straightens with a guilty jolt when she hears us, stamping out the cigarette in the same saucer my father used as an ashtray.
“How was Gideon?” she asks. “Were you able to see him? Was he happy to get his book?”
Beni and I exchange looks.
“It was nice to see him,” I say, evading the book question. “But he was very busy.”
“We got to go on the base,” Beni pipes up, too excited to hold back.
“What?” my mom exclaims.
“I had to poop, Ima, really badly!”
My mom bursts out laughing. “They let you in to use the facilities! Oh! Those sweet guys!”
It’s been a while since I heard her laughing. Not since my dad was called up.
“All right, you silly boys. Motti”—she shoots me a look—“I hope you didn’t make too much trouble. You know how busy they are on the base now.”
I shake my head with sweet, innocent eyes. “We just went in and Beni used the bathroom.”
Her eyes narrow in sudden suspicion, so I change the subject fast. “We’re so hungry. Can we eat early? I’ll set the table.”
She rises from her perch near the radio, turning the volume down, but not turning the radio off.
“That’s a good idea. The prime minister is going to speak tonight about our next move,” she says. “Maybe there will be some good news. Or at least some sort of decision. All this waiting is the worst part. Gives your imagination time to really go wild.”
For the first time since my dad was mobilized, I’m glad he’s not here. He would not have let me off so easily. My dad doesn’t trust me as much as my mom does.
After a quiet meal with just the three of us, we take seats in front of the radio. By unspoken agreement, we leave my dad’s orange chair empty. I finish up some schoolwork while Beni and my mom read a book together. The radio plays classical music softly. At the top of the hour, the radio beeps to signal a news update.
The Egyptian president Nasser announces that if Israel tries to send a ship to Eilat through the Straits of Tiran, he will consider it an act of war.
He has declared: “Under no circumstances will we allow the Israeli flag to pass through the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jews threaten war.
We tell them: ‘Ahlan Wa-sahlan (You are welcome). This water is ours.’”
When we listen to this latest broadcast, Beni turns to my mom. She’s gripped the armrest of her chair so hard her knuckles have turned white.
“But we don’t want war,” he says in a small voice. “Doesn’t he know that?”
“I know, sweet boy,” my mom says, gathering him to her. He sits in her lap, his legs nearly reaching the floor. He’s really too big to sit like that, but neither of them seems to care.
We stay tuned for Eshkol’s speech.
“Finally,” my mom murmurs, reaching for a fresh cigarette. I’ve never seen her smoke this much. “We need to know what comes next.”
But her hopes do not last long. Eshkol’s voice on the radio sounds worried. “The military continues to be alert,” he says hesitantly.
Talk about stating the obvious.
“The government is reviewing reports from the foreign minister regarding his meetings with many states.” He begins to list the various countries that have had meetings with our representatives. Even my mom, who was at the edge of her seat when the broadcast began, starts looking glazed with boredom.
Then he stops in the middle of a sentence, stutters, and mutters something under his breath in Yiddish. I picture him squinting and fiddling with his glasses. If the soldiers on the base were everything I pictured the military to be, our prime minister is everything he shouldn’t be. We need a heroic leader, brave and bold. Instead, we have a shopkeeper with bad eyesight.
With the sea path to Eilat closed, with the UN peacekeepers dismissed, with our Western allies refusing to help us as Egypt and Syria gather massive forces at our borders and other Arab nations pledge support in the united cause of our obliteration, our prime minster explains that more meetings and discussions are on tomorrow’s agenda. Instead of describing our nation’s plans, he basically admits that our government can’t decide what to do.
“Oy vey,” my mother says softly. A thin wisp of smoke from her cigarette slowly spirals upward. Our apartment falls silent. There’s no sound coming from outside. It feels as if all of Jerusalem, the entire state of Israel, is stunned. What are we going to do?
“Ima,” Beni says, resting his head on her plump shoulder, “do we have any gas masks at home?”
“What?” she asks in bewilderment. “Of course not! Why would you think that?”
“If Egypt attacks us with poison gas, what are we supposed to do?”
“No, sweetheart, no, they won’t do that.”
“They might,” he says stubbornly. “They did it in Yemen. We saw Gideon practicing with his gas mask. But if we don’t have one, what are we supposed to do—hold our breath?”
My mom shoots me a questioning look.
“On our way off the base we saw Gideon’s unit coming out from a chem drill,” I explain. I’m pleased with the way that came out. I didn’t lie, and I sounded kind of cool saying “chem drill.”
“Oh,” she says softly.
I suddenly realize that I’ve frightened her.
“Gideon was fine,” I hurry to explain. “They only used tear gas, you know. It doesn’t actually harm you.”
“I know,” she says softly. That’s when I understand she isn’t worried about Gideon in the drill. She’s worried about what will happen to Gideon when it isn’t a drill.
“All right, boys,” she says, rising to her feet. “Fretting won’t do a bit of good. There’s school tomorrow and life goes on. Get ready for bed.”
* * *
The next morning there’s an article in the newspaper that rabbis in Tel Aviv have marked sections of the city parks as overflow cemeteries. The war that is surely coming will have such a high death toll that the city’s cemeteries will not have enough room for all the bodies.
As I walk to school, there’s a heavy tension in the air, like a rubber band that’s being pulled tighter and tighter. It feels like something is going to snap.
* * *
Later in the day, large demonstrations erupt in Jerusalem. On the Jordanian side, Palestinians chant, “We want war!” The armies of Lebanon, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have activated and pledged to the fight. Iraqi troops and tanks are on the move toward Syria and Jordan to join the “battle of honor.” Even some distant African nations that seem to have nothing to do with our fight in the Middle East—Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—pledge troops and weapons to the Arab cause. Muslims all over the world seem to be united against us.
That afternoon’s broadcast announces: England has declined to support a preemptive attack by Israel. In the US, the president urges Israel to have “steady nerves” and not fire a shot.
In related news, the Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Shuqayri has declared: “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants, and as for the survivors—if there are any—the boats are ready to deport them.”
It feels like the whole world is against us.
* * *
After the morning in school, crammed in Morah Pnina’s class, I’m in a bad mood, itching to do something. I’m not the only one. Morah Pnina is starting to lose her voice from shouting at us so much. At lunch, my mom is distracted and short-tempered. We get a letter from my dad on army-issued green paper, but it doesn’t say much. Only how nice it is to see all the guys from his old unit and that he misses us.
My mom pushes away her plate. She’s hardly touched her rice and peas.
“I have a terrible headache,” she says. “I’m going to lie down.” Her skin is sallow and pinched. She’s lost weight in the past two weeks, and it shows in her face.
“Okay, Ima, we’ll be quiet,” Beni says.
She smiles tiredly and pats his head. As she heads to the bedroom, I notice she grabs a pack of cigarettes and the nearly overflowing ashtray/saucer. Somehow, I don’t think she’ll rest much. Beni clears the table while I get busy cleaning the kitchen. As soon as he’s finished, he goes outside to play marbles with his friends in the shade of the massive eucalyptus tree in the courtyard.
As soon as I’m done washing and drying the dishes, I head out.
Yossi meets me at the field. His mom still doesn’t want him playing with me. She thinks Yossi went to the library to study. We play soccer with the neighborhood kids, but no one plays with any heart. None of us are in the mood. There’s a sour feeling in the air. Two boys end up in a fistfight over whether the ball was out or not. Yossi is unusually quiet.
I hear the chants long before I can make out any of the words.
“Come on,” I say, eager to get away from the simmering tension on our field. “Let’s check it out.”
The rest of the boys follow me as we race through the streets. The voices get louder, angrier. In the square, hundreds of people, mostly women, are shouting. They’re demanding the resignation of Prime Minster Eshkol. I don’t know why they think it’s better to have a brand new prime minister right before a war starts. But maybe they’re just trying to say that they’re scared and wish the situation were different.
“My mom’s packing our suitcases, otherwise she would probably be here,” Yossi says, looking straight ahead at the dark mass of women crowding the square.
“Huh?”
“We’re leaving.” His hands are shoved in his pockets, his skinny elbows tucked against his sides.
“You’re going on a trip? Now?” His news is enough to completely take my mind off the demonstration. As long as I’ve known Yossi, he’s never taken a trip. Neither one of us has ever left the country.
“I have an uncle who lives in Morocco,” he says. “My dad’s brother. He invited us to come stay with him. Because, you know.” Yossi shrugs and gestures at the protest in front of us.
“You’re going to Morocco?” I say stupidly. “That’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” Yossi says tightly. “It’s safer.”
“Morocco?” I say again. “Safer for a Jew than Israel?”
Yossi shifts his eyes away, unable to meet my incred
ulous stare.
“Morocco is sending troops to fight us!” I remind him, feeling a hot wave of anger wash over me. “You think that’s a safer place for you?”
“My mom says this is it.” Yossi’s shoulders hitch up higher as he pulls in his chin like a turtle. Like a stupid, frightened little turtle.
“She’s totally wrong!”
Yossi doesn’t answer, though he looks miserable.
“What if this is the end of Israel?” he asks in a low, choked voice. “Millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and no one saved them.”
“We don’t need anyone to save us,” I say, full of bravado I don’t really feel. “We’ll save ourselves. My brother Gideon and the rest of the army will protect us.”
“I hope so,” Yossi says hollowly.
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow,” he says so quietly I can barely hear him. “There’s a ship that leaves tomorrow.”
I sway with shock. “When were you going to tell me?!”
“My mom only decided yesterday. Her cousin works next to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. She told my mom the Americans all left. They know something,” he says earnestly. As if we don’t all know something. As if it isn’t obvious.
“Who cares if the Americans are leaving?” I say, though I feel a heavy sinking in my stomach at the thought. “This isn’t their country. But it is your country, and you’re running away!”
“I’m not running away!” he yells back. “My mom’s making me go!”
The protesters have marched on, their chants growing fainter. The rest of the neighborhood boys decide what to do now.
“Come on,” says David, a tall sandy-haired boy from my class. “Let’s go back to the field. The score’s tied.”
“No, I want to see what they do next,” says Moishe, short with a mop of dark, curly hair. “Maybe they’ll storm the Knesset!” He’s grinning like he hopes they will.
The boys split, some following the marchers, others heading back to the field. Yossi and I don’t move. The air grows still and hot. The sun radiates off the white Jerusalem stone walls. Somewhere a bird trills the same three-note song over and over.
