The Covenant

by Ragen, Naomi

  Outside in the hallway, the doctors conferred. The psychiatrist was in favor. The obstetrician undecided. And the social worker against. Dr. Gabbay found himself wavering. Perhaps the unknown is always worse than the known. There really wasn’t anything particularly frightening about the tape, all things considered. The hostages were obviously surrounded by armed men, obviously frightened. But since Elise’s imagination was no doubt forming images that were as bad or worse, fighting her over this was simply adding to her stress. He reentered the room with the others.

  “Elise, we are bringing you the tape. But I want you to promise me that if it gets to be too much at any point, you’ll turn it off. Promise me?”

  “Let me see the tape, Doctor, and I’ll stand on my head and whistle ‘Dixie’ . . .”

  Dr. Gabbay stared at her.

  “It’s an expression. It means . . .” She tried and failed to think of a Hebrew equivalent. “I’ll do anything you ask of me.”

  “So I have your word? You can be trusted?” He turned to Leah: “She can be trusted?”

  “What do I know, Doctor?” Leah shrugged, patting her granddaughter’s cheek.

  They set up the video and the television by the foot of her bed. Dr. Gabbay handed her the remote control. “Remember, you promised.”

  Elise nodded. Then she pressed play.

  She watched the blank screen impatiently, finally pressing fast-forward until the first image appeared: a man dressed in khaki, his body wrapped in bullets, a machine gun strapped to his shoulder, a black ski mask stretched over his features. Around his neck was a red and white kaffiyeh.

  What your well-dressed, generic terrorist scum will wear, Elise thought, searching the screen. In the upper right corner someone sat on the floor, his feet tied with masking tape, his face bloodied, the eyes puffy. On his lap was an object that seemed to be a doll, until it looked up and faced the camera, its eyes wide with fright.

  “My God! liana!” liana, liana. Elise sat motionless, her eyes glued to the screen, her heart beating, her bowels like ice water. But she couldn’t show it. She willed her face to remain impassive.

  The camera wobbled, then shifted back to the terrorist, who held up a white piece of paper and began to read. His voice was strident, without inflection, like some robot’s. On the lower part of the screen was an English translation of the Arabic, helpfully provided by BCN.

  “Elise, don’t bother reading the translation. It’s just propaganda,” Dr. Gabbay advised.

  Of course, she ignored him. She wanted to understand every single word.

  “In the name of the revolutionary forces of the military arm of Hamas, Izzedine al-Qassam, and in the name of the holy martyrs who have died fighting the Zionist enemy and occupiers of our holy land in Palestine, the murderers and rapists of our women and children, the stealers of our land, in the name of Allah and His holy prophet Mohammed, this is our decree,” she read.

  “We have captured Israeli military soldiers, and illegal settlers, and they are now in our custody. The Zionist government is warned that they will both be executed if our demands are not met . . .”

  A small moan escaped Elise’s lips. Leah squeezed her granddaughter’s hand.

  “We ask the Zionist occupying forces to heed our words well, as Allah is our witness, we mean them and will not negotiate. We ask that all Hamas prisoners being held in Israeli jails be released in no more than forty-eight hours. We ask that all occupying forces be withdrawn from the West Bank and Gaza and Jerusalem. We ask that weapons illegally confiscated from the Palestinian security forces, Hamas and Islamic Jihad be turned over to our representative in a place that we shall name.

  “If these demands are not met within forty-eight hours, we will return to you two corpses.”

  “Oh my god . . .” Elise wept.

  Leah touched her shoulder. “Look. There’s Jon.”

  Elise wiped her eyes, staring at the screen. There he was. Two gunmen stood on either side of him, forcing him to stand. liana was in his arms. Gently, he set her down. They pushed a paper into his hand. He lifted his head and looked into the camera.

  Everything was written on his face, Elise thought: terror, pain, anger, defiance and something else—a deep resignation that was almost otherworldly. Still, there was no mistaking his will to live.

  “I am reading this of my own free will. I am a Jew and a Zionist . . .” Here he paused, a flicker of defiance transforming his features for a moment. It was unmistakable that he had said the words with pride. “I am a member of the Israeli army and an illegal occupier of Palestinian land. I understand that myself and my daughter, also a settler who has occupied Palestinian land, have been sentenced to death. The only way for the Israeli government to save us is to listen to the demands of these men and to do what they say. Our lives are in your hands.” He turned to the child and lifted her in his arms. She grabbed him around the neck, burying her face in his shoulder. “Aba!” she said. Elise felt her heart give a great, strange thump, like a person falling down and banging his head. She put the video on pause, then climbed out of bed.

  “Elise, you can’t! No!” everyone shouted out in unison, alarmed.

  She moved forward deliberately, ignoring the chorus of frightened demands until someone put a restraining hand on her arm. “Leave me alone!” she snarled, almost like a wounded animal, and the hand dropped away. She touched the screen, staring at her husband. His body looked stiff and his hands curved around liana with inflexible determination, as if they were made of iron, or carved from stone. His hair was matted, there was stubble on his chin, and his full lips had been stretched into thin blue lines of determination. She studied his eyes. He had come to terms with what had happened. He would pray. He would also maneuver in any way possible to save their lives. She knew she could depend on that, as her finger traced liana’s head leaning back against his chest.

  It could have been worse, she thought suddenly. Jon’s alive and liana’s in his arms. They had each other. They were both still alive. Thank God, thank God. Both alive. She looked into liana’s eyes. Her baby was frightened.

  “I yelled at her,” she whispered.

  “What?” Leah looked at her, shocked.

  “liana. In the morning. She jumped on the bed, and I yelled at her.” Elise hugged herself, rocking in grief. “Why did I do that to my baby, why? Why did I?” She wept. “If anything happens to her, that will be the last thing she remembers about me.”

  “This is just what I was afraid of,” Dr. Gabbay murmured, distressed. “Elise, you’ve got to calm down. It’s going to hurt your baby.”

  The words had an electric effect on her. She took a deep, calming breath, fingering her heavy stomach. She wiped her eyes. Whatever he was facing, he would take care of liana. And whatever she had to face, she must take care of this baby. They were parents first, and they were in this together. Together, we will take care of our family, Jon, I promise you. I promise you. “Shut it off now,” she said, handing Dr. Gabbay the remote. And then more gently, when the flickering images melted into blackness: “Thank you all. I’m all right. I’ll rest now. I’m sorry to have worried everyone.”

  Leah helped to tuck her back in.

  “Bubbee, tell me how I’m going to live through this. How?”

  “A person is as strong as iron, and as weak as a fly . . .”

  Elise looked up at her grandmother’s face: it was drained of all color. All through the video, Elise realized, she had never once considered how seeing these images of torture and imprisonment was affecting her grandmother. Throughout, she had not uttered a single sound. “Bubbee, are you all right?”

  Leah patted her hand. “I just need to walk a little. I sit so much. I’ll be back. In a minute.”

  She lumbered heavily to the door, closing it gently behind her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem

  Wednesday, May 8, 2002

  2:20 P.M.

  SHE LUMBERED DOWN the hospital cor
ridors.

  As strong as iron, as weak as a fly . . .

  Raus, raus.

  Stripped naked. A religious young girl. The well-fed, leering men. The braided whips snapping hard above. The rows of striped skeletons holding razors. The long, dark braid, the red ribbon tied by Mama’s hands, falling into dust. The hair below, shorn, like a sheep, an animal.

  Still a woman? Still Leah?

  Then burning needles, tattooed numbers. No underwear. Clothes—children’s summer dresses, men’s pants. Shoes, wooden clogs, torn cloth. Only the boots are left. A mistake. They let me keep my good, leather boots, my only connection to home.

  Bottles: hollowed, emptied, labeled, laid on tiered shelves of wood, five across. That’s what we are. No place to breathe, except in someone’s face. Filthy feet in your face; sweat on your body. The smell. Unbearable. The noise. A thousand women. Talking, weeping. The noise. Unbearable.

  Bear it. Learn to bear it.

  The imploring hand of the fevered sick.

  Ignore it. Think only about yourself.

  Never admit you’re sick. The others will kill you in the night to save themselves or else the Nazis will burn the barracks.

  Put yourself first, second and third. Then nothing. Then yourself. Then everybody else. No friendship. No love. Nothing shared.

  Don’t drink the water. Hold on to your bowl. Without a bowl, you’ll die. Sleep with it underneath your head. Eat anything they give you, the grass and nettle tea. Drink urine. Eat sawdust. Eat the smell of meat.

  Everyone has diarrhea. Twenty toilets. For one thousand women. Always clogged. Rivers of excrement to wade through. But you must keep clean.

  A thousand women, and one place to wash, meant for twenty. You must wash yourself, your clothes. Get up earlier than the others. Get to the faucet. No soap. No towels. Forget the freezing cold, the wet cling of undried clothing.

  Jump over the ditch, or you’ll be selected. Stand on tiptoes, or you’ll be selected. Pinch color into your cheeks, or you’ll be selected. Cover baldness with a scarf, or you’ll be selected . . . Wait and wait and wait as they count and count and count. Survive the bite of the fieas. The bloody torment. The sleepless nights. The freezing cold, the boiling heat.

  “Get up, you filthy bitches.”

  Morning, already?

  “I’ll send you out of here through the chimney.”

  When you die, guards get rations, cigarettes, home leaves. Each day, half must die.

  Auschwitz is in the death business.

  Be bad for business.

  Live.

  The hunger . . . it grabs you, punches you, squeezes out your breath. An enemy.

  The cold. Warm yourself by the crematoria. The thirst. Drink the water in the swamps by the crematoria.

  Can’t mourn the dead. Envy them.

  “You see that smoke?” The blockova laughs. Mama, Fraydil, baby Shmilu . . . his blue hat all that is left in my hand.

  Lie on the shelf. Wait for them to smash the bottle, to load the pieces. Wait to become smoke.

  Leave me alone. Let me die.

  In the killing fields, carry sacks, bricks, dig up tree trunks. In no barbarous jungle, no island or rainforest, have women lived and worked as we do on cultured, European soil.

  German soldiers on a passing train jeering: “Are you men or women?”

  A knife in our young women’s breasts.

  May you lie rotting on the Russian front and may someone ask: Man or woman?

  Laugh, or cry. Go mad. Scream. Guess. What will they do?

  Send us home. Kill us all. The Russians will invade. The British will invade. Hitler will drop dead. Hitler will win, kill every few in the world. Try to think like the monsters. But there is no logic to hatred.

  When will we get out? When will Ariana’s parents—the film stars—fiaques and Francoise Feyder, rescue us? What will they feed us in their apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement? Their summer villa in Cannes?

  Try to pray. To find God’s hiding place. Give us a sign, dear God. Are you with us, here in Auschwitz? Will I ever understand how You rule Your world? How You rule Your beloved and Chosen people?

  You are my dear God . . .

  Can’t see Him. Can He see me?

  Away, in the fields, piles of burnt prayer books, phylacteries, photos, letters, handkerchiefs, cigarettes. Forbidden to touch. Down my blouse, the pages with prayers.

  The blockova finds it. Leaves me out in the snow, to die. All night long, pray . . . “From the depths, I cry to you, my Lord, and He answered . . .”

  The gray light of morning. Can’t move.

  Can’t work in the fields.

  Ariana and Esther weep. I’m finished, frozen, already dead.

  Hear the number called. Your number. March out, barely alive.

  A miracle. A transfer! To the effectkummer—inside, warm, to sort clothes, food! To Heaven. A chance to survive!

  Maria did it. Her kuzyn, the German prisoner. Because she saw me praying.

  Do anything for each other. To help each other.

  Get through each day’s inspection. Don’t be too pale, too thin, too sick. Or the tenth woman, gassed to make room for a new transport. Don’t he unlucky . . . because there are no rules. No laws.

  Don’t think.

  Live, for your family who might still be alive.

  Live, for the children you still might have. And their children.

  For Elise. For liana.

  ______

  She groped her way into the bathroom, steadying herself against white-tiled walls. She washed her face, staring at herself in the mirror, staring at her tired, old eyes, which had seen so much.

  She splashed cold water on her face, then dabbed it dry.

  Slowly, she walked down the hospital corridor, opening the door to her granddaughter’s room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem

  Wednesday, May 8, 2002

  2:40 P.M.

  TO LEAH’S SURPRISE, Elise wasn’t alone.

  A young woman, a stranger, was sitting in a chair across from the bed. She turned to look at Leah, giving her a smile of bright white teeth. “Hi. You must be Elise’s grandmother.” She got up from her chair and walked quickly toward her.

  “What are you doing here? Who are you? Who let you in . . .?”

  “It’s all right, Bubbee”, Elise interrupted her. “I invited her. She sent me a note. She wants to help us, Bubbee. She’s going to set up a television interview. They want to let me broadcast a message to the whole world. I can say anything I want, appeal to the kidnappers not to hurt liana and Jon . . .”

  “Elise, darling.” Leah walked over to her granddaughter, taking her hand. “But who is she?”

  “I’m a journalist.” Julia smiled warmly. “An on-air correspondent . . .”

  Leah looked at the long, blond hair, the sparkling white teeth. A reporter. A television reporter. All the alarms in her system went off.

  “Who do you work for?”

  Julia hesitated. “BCN.”

  “Those anti-Semites . . .?”

  “Bubbee . . .”

  “Really, Mrs?”

  “You want I should give you my name? For what reason? You want to do something good for an old Jew? Was I born yesterday?”

  “Bubbee, don’t!”

  “Elise, you don’t watch TV the way I do. They blow up Jewish children, and BCN shows the crying mothers of the Muslim homicide bombers. They blow up Israeli buses, and BCN shows old Arab women standing at Israeli checkpoints, suffering, because the line is so long. We should let the murderers in faster . . .”

  “Her name is Mrs. Helfgott,” Elise told the reporter, embarrassed by her grandmother’s cynicism, of which she had no part.

  “Mrs. Helfgott,” Julia Greenberg said gently. “I know that there have been some problems in the past. Believe me, our network has gotten tons and tons of mail, mostly from Jewish viewers, complaining about the lack of balance. That’s w
hy my predecessor . . .”

  “Who?”

  “The last BCN Israel correspondent . . . John Piggot.”

  “That piece of . . .”

  “Bubbee!”

  “Pig, I used to call him. Once, he shows Hezbollah terrorists captured trying to get over the border. He tells people they are family men, away from home, fighting for their country . . . Doesn’t show the weapons they were trying to smuggle in—that I saw on Fox. Doesn’t remind people how they bomb Israeli towns—apartment houses, shopping centers, kindergartens, for no reason, after Israel took out every last soldier from Lebanon. Doesn’t remind anybody how Hezbollah put on UN uniforms, kidnapped three Israeli boys, soldiers, and won’t tell their mothers if they’re alive or dead; won’t let even the Red Cross see them . . .”

  Julia got up and walked over to her. She looked into Leah’s eyes and placed a hand over hers. “I know. It was terrible. That’s why they finally took John out and sent me over instead . . .”

  “Bubbee, she’s a woman. I showed her pictures of Jon, of liana . . . she understands. She thinks maybe someone will hear. Even terrorists have mothers, girlfriends, children. They go to doctors. Jon has so many Arab patients . . . Someone needs to explain this to them . . . They also have hearts . . .”

  “Elise, I know these kinds of people. These murderers. I met them in the camps. The kind that throw babies into bonfires, then go eat lunch . . . Elise . . . please . . . you don’t have to put yourself through this!”

  “Not all Palestinians are terrorists! Maybe one of their religious leaders, or their politicians . . .” She persisted stubbornly. “After all, the more publicity there is that they are holding a doctor and a five-year-old . . . Maybe world opinion . . .”

  “The world and its opinion . . . When we sat in Auschwitz, the world had an opinion? They put headlines in newspapers?” She took out a tissue and spat in it.

  “But I have to do something . . . I feel so helpless!” Elise covered her face with both hands.

  “Darling . . . don’t . . . don’t.” Leah’s head swam. She staggered back.