by Tammar Stein
“Could be training runs,” my mom says. She speaks calmly, but I hear the tension in her voice. “There aren’t any air raid sirens. Turn on the radio.”
I do. But there’s no news.
“You’re going to school,” my mom tells us. She levels me a look. “I mean it, Motti. No skipping.”
A few days ago, dear Mrs. Friedburg just had to mention to my mom that I’ve been filling sandbags during school hours. My national defense days were abruptly cut short. My mom said I could help out after school, but not during school. This is the problem with Mrs. Friedburg. She is completely untrustworthy.
A few minutes later Beni and I are on our way to school. As we cross a narrow alley, a white flash passes in front of us. It’s that green-eyed cat. It easily leaps on top of a metal trash can, and from there it bounds to a balcony crowded with potted plants. It balances gracefully along the balcony’s wrought iron railing, and then pauses to look at me over its shoulder.
“Did you see that?” I exclaim.
Beni looks up from his feet, looking at me and then all around.
“What? What are you talking about?” he asks.
I point toward the balcony and the acrobatic cat. But it’s gone. The balcony’s empty.
Beni meets up with several boys from our street, and they walk the next eight blocks to his grammar school together. I turn at the corner and head to my school.
I’m sitting on the floor of Morah Pnina’s classroom, my back resting against the door, when the air raid siren suddenly wails. Everyone freezes. A few students start to gather their things.
“Leave your things,” Morah Pnina roars over the noise. “This isn’t a drill.”
Everyone rushes to their feet. Several chairs tip over and fall with a clatter.
“To the shelter!” she yells. “Now!”
I scramble to my feet as eighty kids come surging toward me. I fumble with the doorknob. Finally, it gives, and the door flies open. I stumble out of the classroom, my books and papers on the floor instantly trampled under dozens of feet. As soon as I step into the corridor, I’m carried along by the press of people. I couldn’t turn around and go back to the classroom even if I wanted to. There’s organized chaos as everyone races toward the shelter near the school yard.
Two teachers stand by the heavy metal door and urge students in. The siren wails and wails. Kids fly inside, stumbling over each other, plunging down the stairs into the dimly lit space. I focus on the open doorway of the shelter. My vision narrows until all I see is the dark rectangle of safety that beckons me. The siren screams, drowning out the shouts of the teachers, the cries of the students. My heart knocks painfully against my chest.
This is it. That thought plays over and over in my mind. This is it. This is it.
I make it into the shelter and find a place to sit on the damp, musty floor. The last student rushes in, the teachers duck inside and pull the blast-proof metal door closed. It shuts with a clang.
They are barely down the stairs when the first explosion hits. The ground shudders.
A few people scream.
It’s followed by more explosions, some loud and nearby, others fainter and farther away. I try to keep track how many, but I lose count. The teachers huddle in a corner, fiddling with a transistor radio someone thought to bring along.
The radio crackles to life, but I can’t hear it over the cries of the scared students.
“Children,” Morah Pnina cries, trying to get control of the room. “Children, stay calm. Be quiet!”
But not even our strong-willed teacher can calm the crowd. I make my way over to the transistor, stepping over huddled students. I need to hear what’s going on.
The teachers have turned the dial to Kol Israel, the official Israeli radio station. But it only plays music.
Morah Pnina turns the dial. Radio Cairo blasts in Hebrew: Arise! Go forth to battle! The hour of glory is here! Our airplanes and our missiles at this moment are shelling all Israel’s towns and villages.
She turns the dial again. Radio Damascus reports: Silence the enemy! Destroy him! Liberate Palestine! The Syrian air force has begun to bomb Israeli cities and to destroy its positions.
Changing stations again, I hear King Hussein, speaking on Radio Amman, say: The hour of revenge has come.
“It’s Jordan,” Morah Pnina says in a flat voice. “King Hussein has thrown his lot in with Nasser.”
It’s the worst possible news. Little Israel, only nineteen years old, is now fighting a war on three fronts against three different armies, at the same time.
I think bitterly of Mrs. Friedburg’s assurances. I should have known better than to believe her.
I suddenly picture Yossi, far away in Morocco. All the people who forecasted doom and death. With a horrible sense of realization, I see that they were right. A rising wave of terror like nothing I’ve ever felt before washes over me. War has come to Jerusalem. And with it, perhaps, the end of our Jewish country. And our lives.
Another explosion rattles the ground.
The teachers have all served in the military. They discuss the possibility of invasion by Jordanian ground troops. Shelling West Jerusalem is one thing. Bad, of course, but nothing compared to the utter slaughter of ground troops going house to house. There are also Egyptian and Iraqi troops currently in Jordan as part of a joint-forces agreement. Both the Jordanians and the Iraqis have particularly fearsome reputations, well-trained and lethal. And the border is not even a ten-minute walk from our school.
As if in agreement with the teachers’ grim predictions, another explosion goes off. We all instinctively duck and cover our heads as the ground trembles around us.
I can’t stand the thought of being stuck in my school’s bunker when my mom is at home by herself. I have to get to her.
“Morah Pnina,” I say, “I need to go home.”
“No,” she says. “Absolutely not.” She turns to one of the pale, bug-eyed teachers next to her. “Open the boxes with the chocolate bars. Pass them out. It’ll give the students something to distract them. Right now, we can all use the sugar.”
“Morah Pnina,” I try again.
“Here,” she says and shoves a box of candy bars at me. “Take one.”
“But,” I say, holding the box, “I don’t—”
“Motti, it would be suicide to leave the bunker right now.” Morah Pnina is quite tall for a woman and the top of her head nearly brushes the ceiling. She hunches down, looming over me. The dim light casts long shadows on her face. “I know you want to go home. But your mom will kill me if I let you go now. As soon as there’s a lull in the shelling, you can leave. Okay? But right now, help me get these students calm. Some of them are hyperventilating. Give them a candy bar.”
I slip one of the bars in my pocket and make my way to my friends. I plop down and hand the box over to David. He reaches in, grabs a bar, and passes the box down. I much prefer to worry about my mom than to think about Gideon and my dad. I hope Beni is doing okay. It tears me up a little to think of him so scared in his school’s bunker as the shells explode. Beni has my old teacher Morah Rivkah. I always liked her. She’ll keep a cool head under pressure. I hope she keeps an eye on Beni.
I don’t have a watch, but Moishe does. An hour passes. Then another. I can’t keep still. We finish the chocolate bars. Some kids eye the boxes of sweet crackers, but Morah Pnina holds them off.
“We need to pace ourselves,” she says. What she means is, We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here, so let’s not eat all the food in a couple of hours.
Time moves achingly slowly. Again and again, there are rumbles of explosions. More jets fly overhead. Morah Pnina catches my eye and shakes her head no. I can’t leave. Not yet.
We sit. We wait. We listen to the radio for news.
After six hours, I’ve had it. I feel ill from too much chocolate and sitting still for so long. My mind races with worries for my mom. She’s probably beside herself with worry. None of her boys is wit
h her. Not one.
I weave between the tight groups of kids to get over to the teachers. They sit leaning against the rough cement-brick wall, lost in their own world of worry.
“There hasn’t been any shelling for half an hour,” I tell her.
She shakes her head no. “The all-clear hasn’t sounded,” she says.
“Let me run home,” I say. “I can be there in three minutes flat. Less if I really sprint.”
Morah Pnina hesitates, thinking.
“I have to go,” I tell her. “I’m going crazy.”
She rubs a hand across her face. She lowers it and searches my face.
“Okay,” she nods, looking pale. “You can go. Listen up,” she says, raising her voice. “Anyone who lives in the immediate neighborhood, two or three minutes away at the most: If you want to run home, you can right now. You do not have to go. But if you want, you can.”
A frightened hush falls over the crowd. I can see the kids who live nearby frantically thinking whether they want to risk it or not.
“Make a decision now,” Morah Pnina says, anxiety sharpening her voice. “I’m opening the door for exactly thirty seconds.”
I walk to the door, my heart thumping hard and fast. I bounce on my toes, ready to sprint for my life. I look over my shoulder. Most of the kids have stayed put, but David and Moishe, along with a couple of kids from the other grades, have come forward.
Morah Pnina nods. “Good luck,” she says. “Chazak v’amatz.” Be strong and brave. It’s an ancient blessing given by Moses to the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan River. We’ve studied it in her class. She unlatches the door and pushes it open. Sun streams in—just another sunny day in June.
“Go!” she says. “Run!”
We do.
At first we’re all packed in, jostling through the door and out into the school yard. Then we scatter, five kids running in all directions, sprinting for home.
I race through the narrow streets that I strolled down just this morning. There’s not a soul out. The sounds of my pounding feet and whistling breath are the only signs of human life. They echo off the buildings. The blue skies seem to mock me. The silence feels ominous.
Every second I’m out in the open is reckless. I run like I’ve never run before. The street seems to stretch out, like in a nightmare, getting longer and longer. I pump my arms, leaning forward. A building has been hit and rubble is strewn in the street. I clamber over it, quick and light on my feet. The laundry lines have snapped. Shirts and underwear hang down the side of the building like wilted leaves on a vine. Glass shards glitter and flash on the ground like a field full of diamonds. Suddenly, there’s a scream of jet engines. It’s so loud I feel it vibrating in the soles of my feet and up my legs.
Four Mirage jets shoot overhead, flying in a tight diamond formation. Without meaning to, I come to a stop, amazed to see them. The Israeli Air Force emblem, a blue star in a white circle, winks for a second on their wings before they’re gone.
I blink, standing in the empty street.
Then I take off again, running as fast as I can.
Chapter Twelve
Fog of War
All the west-facing windows in my apartment building are shattered, though the building itself seems fine. I run under the shadow of the eucalyptus tree in our courtyard. I grew up playing in the shade of that tree while my mother sat nearby with the other moms, peeling potatoes or doing laundry in large vats of soapy water, gossiping, and laughing. My earliest memory is of spitting out a dried eucalyptus leaf because I’d thought it was a cracker.
As I tear up the walkway, glass crunches and grinds under my feet. I push through the front door and race to the basement stairs that lead to our bomb shelter. There are smears of red paint on the floor. My heart clenches at the sight. It’s not red paint. It’s blood.
I pound on the heavy metal door.
“It’s Motti,” I shout. “Let me in!”
For a few seconds nothing happens. Then I hear the clangs of the thick metal bolt sliding open. The door opens up. Mrs. Friedburg blinks at me in surprise.
“Ima!” I shout around her. “Ima, are you okay?”
Mrs. Friedburg steps aside. My mom scrambles to her feet. She’s holding Yoram, Ofra Geffen’s baby.
“Motti,” she screams and runs toward me, still holding the baby. “Oh, my God! How did you get here?” She grabs me with one hand and pulls me into the shelter just as a rumbling explosion thunders again.
Mrs. Friedburg shuts the door behind me and I’m home.
My apartment building’s shelter is smaller than my school shelter. Even though there are fewer people, we’re all packed in. Efraim and Miriam Pinsky, the elderly couple from upstairs. Shlomo, another older man who lives above us, and Mrs. Friedburg. Ofra Geffen and her two younger children. Shira is stuck at her all-girls school, which isn’t far from Beni’s school.
Esther Geffen, Shira’s little sister, can’t stop crying. She’s sprawled on her mom’s lap, wailing hysterically. Her mom is injured.
“Ofra’s leg was badly gashed by flying glass,” my mom tells me in a low voice. “The first siren caught them by surprise. They didn’t make it down the stairs before a shell hit. The windows shattered.” She makes a helpless gesture. “At least the baby’s okay.”
Ofra had tucked baby Yoram inside her shirt and curled around him as the windows exploded.
They’ve wrapped her leg in white gauze, but the blood seeps through. The sight of it has unhinged four-year-old Esther. It gives me the willies too. Esther raises a tear-streaked face, which is dotted with cuts. Her bare arms and legs have cuts too. She didn’t escape unscathed.
The baby fusses and my mom coos over him. He whimpers. She jiggles him on her knees, but that upsets him. He lets out a wailing scream that has everyone in the room wincing.
“Who’s a beautiful boy?” my mom croons in a calm singsong. “Who’s so big and strong?” He smacks his little lips and she gives him her knuckle to suck on. Baby Yoram goes to town, sucking with all his might. No one brought a bottle for him.
I realize what a blessing it was when three-day-old Gideon slept through the shelling from the War of Independence. There’s something terribly infuriating about a crying baby when everyone is stressed and scared. I want to scream, Shut up! Except that it won’t do any good. I’m impressed by how calm my mom is. It must be so strange for her, like time folding back on itself. Another war, another bomb shelter, another baby in her lap.
Someone used the covered bucket before I got here. The whole room smells like raw sewage.
There’s a small transistor radio crackling with news. None of it is good. Kol Israel remains mum about the situation. But Syria’s President Atassi announces, This battle will be one of the final liberation from imperialism and Zionism . . . We shall meet in Tel Aviv.” On Radio Cairo, broadcasting in Arabic and Hebrew, we hear that the Israeli Air Force has been destroyed and that tanks are rolling into Tel Aviv.
This sets Esther wailing again. Her mom is pale and sweating with pain. My mom and I exchange looks. The baby sucks desperately on her knuckle. The mood in our dank, stinking shelter is bleak and hopeless.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Friedburg suddenly declares. Everyone looks at her as if she’s lost her mind. “Ach,” she says, waving her hand as if to banish this dark talk. “When the Voice of Berlin tells me something, I believe it. Turn off that terrible racket,” she commands Shlomo, who sits by the transistor. He looks at her, slack-mouthed. “Immediately! We need happy voices now. When I was hidden for two years in a closet in godforsaken Augsburg, I sang to myself. Silently. Now, we will sing with all our strength!”
This is a new side to Mrs. Friedburg. Not daring to disobey, Shlomo clicks off the transistor.
Mrs. Friedburg starts us off with “Hine Ma Tov,” a traditional hymn with an upbeat tune: Behold, how good it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
At first it’s only her voice that rings out. She has a clear, st
rong voice. My mom joins in, swaying with the baby. Then Shlomo with a passable baritone. Then me, then Esther and her mom. The Pinskys. We all sing it. The baby falls silent, staring at us with wide eyes. He looks so astonished that I fizzle with laughter. My mom looks at me with a warm, fond look. Baby Yoram rests his head on her comfortable bosom, snuggling in.
As soon as we finish, Mrs. Friedburg launches into “Modeh Ani.” After that, everyone has ideas. I teach them Scout campfire songs. Shlomo teaches us an old Romanian lullaby. Ofra sings a breathy Persian love song.
I look at Mrs. Friedburg with new respect. She singlehandedly changed the mood for everyone in our shelter. She made us hopeful and less afraid. Maybe my dad was right. She really is some kind of hero.
During a lull in the shelling, I offer to race upstairs and bring back a milk bottle and extra nappies for the baby. The music no longer amuses Yoram, and he has started crying again. I can’t really blame him this time. The unpleasant smell coming from his bottom would make anyone cry.
Ofra looks at my mom with questioning eyes, silently asking her if that’s okay.
“Quick, quick, quick!” my mom urges me. Mrs. Friedburg holds open the thick shelter door, and I fly out. When I’m back less than three minutes later, the whole room erupts in applause and cheers. As my mom plugs the baby’s mouth with the full bottle, everyone sighs with relief.
We pass around the bottled water and candy bars that we put in the shelter weeks ago. Shlomo trots upstairs and returns with a plastic bag full of plums that he hands out. By mutual silent agreement, my mom and I don’t talk about Gideon or my dad. It’s easier to worry about Beni. But I remind my mom about Morah Rivkah. We agree he’s in good hands.
We sing more songs. Mrs. Friedburg lets Shlomo turn on the radio, but only if he keeps it tuned to Kol Israel. It plays music. There are no news updates.
At one point I hear Esther say to her mom, “I know why there’s only music.”
“Why, motek?” Ofra asks absently.
“So we won’t be scared.”
