by Herman Wouk
“Dado, did you mean what you told those kibbutzniks?”
“Every word.”
“How do you propose to make enmity unendurable for the Arabs?”
“Kill the terrorists they send in,” Dado coldly growled from behind him, “and keep killing them. Grind the bones of their armies whenever they try war. War is crazy, it’s horrible and disgusting, but we have to fight to exist. They don’t. They can’t get it into their heads that we can live in peace side by side. One day they will, when they become good and tired of dying for the Russians.”
“That’s not what they think they’re doing.”
“No. It’ll take time for them to understand, maybe a generation, maybe two. But then peace will come.”
Far down the road a lone girl soldier appeared in the headlights, gesturing for a hitch. “Pick her up,” Dado said. She climbed in beside the driver without a glance at the back seat, a plump baby-face in baggy fatigues, juggling a rifle. “Are you crazy,” inquired Dado from behind her, “breaking regulations, out here by yourself in the middle of the night?”
She pointed a pudgy finger at twinkling lights on a hill. “My boyfriend lives in that moshav.”
“Then why didn’t you stay the night?”
“We had a fight. I hate him.”
“If you were brought up on charges before Dado,” said Kishote, “he’d throw you out of the army.”
“Dado?” She noisily yawned. “Ha! He’d just try to screw me.”
Elazar gave Yossi a hard poke in the back. Yossi said, “Maybe you’re thinking of General Dayan.”
“Oh, the big brass are all the same,” said the girl. “Sex maniacs. The higher the worse. How far are you going?”
“Headquarters Commanding Officer North,” said Yossi. “Don’t you realize that terrorists roam in the night around here?”
“So what? So I shouldn’t go on living?”
“Life is bearable for you, then?” asked Dado.
“Life is fine since we won the war. That’ll hold them for a while. They need a good bloody nose every few years. God, I’m tired. Wake me when you get to Afula.” She snuggled down, the rifle between her knees.
“At your service,” said Dado. After a while, when the girl slumped asleep, he said, “ ‘Every few years.’ The kids know, don’t they?”
“It’s their skins,” said Kishote. “Maybe the Eilat will wake up the others.”
The helicopter thrashed to earth in a heavy rain, whirling streams off the blades. Kishote greeted Dayan and brought him to the Northern Commander’s map-lined office, where Dado waited alone. “Forty-seven dead or missing from the Eilat,” Dayan began abruptly, fixing them with his good eye. “More than a hundred wounded. The question is how we hit back. The American State Department is asking us to ‘show restraint.’ ” The crooked smile appeared. “Any votes for restraint?”
“I’ve been thinking it over. Sink the missile boats,” said Dado. “Every one of them. Blow for blow, redoubled. Are their locations known?”
“Pinpointed in Port Said. The air force is ready to do it, but there are Soviet vessels in the harbor, including a cruiser and some destroyers. Nasser shot from behind that shield. Still, the Egyptian radio is warning the people to expect reprisal. Nasser knows we’ve got to do something.”
Kishote asked, “Minister, how did he dare, when Motti Hod can level Cairo?”
“Don’t be naive, Yossi.” Dayan shook his head impatiently. “Levelling Cairo is nonsense and Nasser knows that. Politically, Egypt holds all the cards —”
“All the cards?” protested Elazar. “Why? How? We crushed them, we sit on strong defensible lines, and —”
Dayan interrupted. “I said politically, Dado. Superpower political odds, three to one for the Arabs — Russians a hundred percent for them, Americans ‘evenhanded,’ fifty-fifty. Understand? Plus of course France, England, that whole European schmear, plus the Third World, whatever that amounts to, all entirely for the Arabs. And that’s why we’ve got our hands full at the UN, just staving off a resolution for our total withdrawal. Like the vote after we won the Suez War.”
General Elazar and Kishote looked somberly at each other. Dayan got up and walked to a wall map of Sinai and Egypt, and Kishote noted again how paunchy and unmilitary he appeared in his ministerial dark suit and tie. “So far, one idea has cabinet approval, and mine,” Dayan went on, gesturing at the map. “A tank reconnaissance in force across the Canal, wiping out army bases, artillery emplacements, AA batteries, and so on. Military targets only. In and out with air cover, half a day. Southern Command is working on it. I want your views, Dado.” He turned to Kishote. “And yours. It would take dash, like your run to El Arish.”
David Elazar said, “It would also take time, Minister, and serious planning and rehearsal. A water obstacle presents major problems. Moreover —”
Abruptly Dayan turned on Kishote. “Well, Yossi? If assigned, would you organize and do it?”
“I have a different idea, sir.”
“Let’s have it.”
“It’s not practical now.”
“Then why bring it up?”
“Because you made me think of it.”
Dado remarked, “If it’s Kishote’s idea, it’s something crazy.”
“No, just requiring a lot more time. Use Russian tanks.” Dado and Dayan exchanged sharp glances. “We’ve captured hundreds. Put Egyptian markings on them, and once across we could roll to Alexandria. Total surprise, total enemy confusion. Even in a one-day recco in force we could do tremendous damage with few casualties.”
“Why can’t we do that in the next week?” Dayan demanded. “Transfer seasoned Centurion crews? Train night and day? Assemble pontoon rafts?”
“Minister, have you climbed inside a Soviet tank lately?”
“Once. I could barely squeeze in. I’ve put on weight.”
“It’s not your weight, sir. They’ve sacrificed everything for low profile. The order went out, low profile, so they’ve got low profile, by God! Soviet munition-making. Those tanks must be manned by Russian midgets. They can draw on two hundred million people for small guys. Nasser, on fifty million. We’ll have a problem, but it can be done, and it can be a stunning blow.”
“By your life, Kishote,” said Dayan, “let me have a study soon of such an operation. Meantime, Dado, what do we do?”
“Minister, even if the air force is out,” said Dado, “one requirement remains, swift response. Slow reprisal sends a hesitant and mushy message.”
“How about artillery, sir?” said Kishote. “Remind them we’re not a hundred miles off in the Negev anymore, but right there at the Egyptian border.”
Dado nodded. Dayan’s good eye glinted. “We’ve been considering that, too, Kishote.”
“This is a mistake,” said Amos Pasternak.
He stood with his father in a sheltered observation post in the south of Sinai overlooking the deep blue Gulf of Suez, watching the oil refineries on the other shore blazing and exploding. Squinting in the desert sun, Dayan was talking to interviewers while cameramen filmed him against the background of the smoke and fire billowing over Egypt. The artillery exchange was still going on: distant flashes, staccato thumps, and nearby earsplitting thunder, rolling smoke, and pale flame.
“So, you’re back from America a few hours, and you’re passing judgment on national strategy.” Sam Pasternak’s tone was rough but not ill-natured. Despite his son’s fine tweed jacket and flannel slacks acquired in San Francisco, Amos’s Israeli look was unchanged; swarthy and thickset like his father, his heavy oval face almost boyishly open, his dark heavy-lidded eyes sparkling and sharp. He had telephoned at the first news of the Eilat, saying, “Looks like the war may be starting again, Abba. I’m not missing it, I’m coming home.”
“You’re a fool. There won’t be war, the Egyptians are still helpless.”
“They are? How did the Eilat sink? Some sailor pull the plug by mistake?”
“If you’re
interested in your army career, stay at Stanford.”
“My career will be fine.” And here he was.
After a deafening artillery salvo close by, the father said, “All right, military genius, why a mistake?”
“Such a public event!” Amos gestured at the reporters. “On American TV, how will it look? Absolutely terrible. They won’t show the Eilat going down, just the Jews bombarding peaceful industries. Only pictures count over there. Pictures!”
“Well, too bad there was no TV crew on the Eilat. The Americans know our ship was sunk, with big loss of life.”
“They’ve forgotten already. Anyway, what kind of surprise attack is this? Major oil refineries within artillery range, civilians already evacuated? Zero shock. Nothing. Only shock can keep the Arabs off balance, Abba, and if Nasser calculated reprisal targets before he sank the Eilat, this had to be number one.”
A white command car, with the blue letters UN painted on each side, was coming down the dirt road from the canal, raising a long dust plume. “Well, well,” said Sam Pasternak, “the umpires are arriving to stop the fun and try to fix blame for who started it. Ha! There are no umpires at sea.” He glanced at his wristwatch, and waved to his driver in a jeep nearby. “Let’s get back to Refidim. A helicopter will be meeting me at twelve o’clock, I have to report to the Prime Minister.”
“Great. I’m dying to surprise my girlfriend.”
“Dvora? Is she still modelling for Yael Nitzan?”
“I assume so. I haven’t heard from her. We had a tiff before I left.”
“What about?”
“She wanted to come with me to Stanford.”
His father grunted and was silent. After some minutes of bumping along the unpaved track in a whirl of dust, Sam Pasternak said, “For three reasons, Amos, that bombardment is no mistake. First of all, the Egyptians surprised us, we didn’t estimate they’d dare such escalation, and politically something had to be done fast to shut off the Arab rejoicing. Not the Egyptians, they were pretty quiet, but the other countries were calling the Eilat sinking ‘Israel’s Pearl Harbor.’ Second, our press and people were yelling for action. Third, our intelligence was that Nasser expected a reprisal in the Port Said area up north, so this was in fact a tactical surprise.”
“Maybe, maybe. You know something?” Amos said. “California is the Garden of Eden, and this Sinai dust has the smell of Hell, and I’m glad I’m back.”
YAEL LURIA, read the sign over the Tel Aviv shop in stark block letters, gold on white, for in business Don Kishote’s wife used her maiden name. In the window were two ultrafashionable dummies, skinny and faceless, one displaying a blue leather coat, the other a miniskirted green suit. Inside, noisy American shoppers wore first names pinned to their dresses — Marilyn, Connie, Isobel — on small wooden Hadassah medallions shaped like Tablets of the Law.
“Good God,” Yael greeted Amos, stepping away from customers. “You! You went to Stanford, I heard.”
Amos had not seen Colonel Nitzan’s wife in a long time. She looked as American as her customers, lean, well-coiffed, dressed in beige leather. Amos did not know exactly what had gone on between Yael and his father long ago. It wasn’t talked about in the family, and he had heard only gossip, but whatever it was, he could understand it. “Well, I’m back. Dvora’s here?”
“Dvora? Yes, she’s with some rich Brit ladies in a private room” — Yael dropped her voice and looked oddly uncomfortable — “modelling lingerie. Will you wait in my office?”
“Why not? Congratulations on Kishote’s Medal of Valor. How is he?”
“From the little I see of him, fine. He’s up north now, he’s Dado’s chief of operations.” She showed Amos into a cubicle decorated with French fashion posters, where a lean curly-headed boy was writing in a copybook at the desk. “And this is our son. Aryeh, this is Major Pasternak, a valiant warrior. I’ll tell Dvora you’re here.”
The boy peered at Amos’s tank corps emblem, and at the beret strapped on his shoulder. “If you’re in tanks, why do you have a red beret?”
Sharp kid, this. “I’m qualified both as a tankist and paratrooper, Aryeh.”
“But which are you?”
“Well, that’s a story.”
“Tell it to me.”
Amos sat down in a wicker chair. “What are you doing?”
“English homework. My father is in the tank corps.”
“I know. Colonel Nitzan is a famous tank commander.”
Aryeh’s face lit up. He had Yael’s blue-gray eyes and snub nose, and with his thick blond curls he was pretty as a girl. He read from his open book in stumbling English.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time …
“Zeh nifla, lo?” (“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”)
“You think so? You have good taste.”
“What do you really do in the army?”
“Special things.”
“What things?
“You have to be clever and strong to do them. Maybe you will one day, Aryeh. Do you know what ‘elite’ means?”
“Sure. The chosen. The best. That’s what I’ll be.”
“Then get back to your homework. First elite rule is, whatever you’re doing, do it with all your might.” The boy saluted, bent over his notebook, and resumed careful writing.
Amos sat drumming his fingers on the wicker. Three months was a long time to be without a girlfriend, and he had not found one at Stanford. He had met Dvora when she was finishing her draft service in the armor corps, and for a year they had shared a flat in Ramat Gan for weekends of shattering lovemaking. She had been given to kvetching — so Amos had dismissed her persistent protests — about this sporadic arrangement. She had wanted something more committed and positive, if not yet binding. Amos didn’t. She was beautiful and sweet, but uneducated and lightweight, and as a companion for an academic year at Stanford University, all wrong. So he had judged, and he had been tough about it, resisting her cajoling, her tears and her threats. Now he had to make it up to her. He was thinking over an affectionate approach when here she came in a red bathrobe, her face all painted up for modelling, her lovely brown ringlets exquisitely arranged. “So you’re back.”
“Dvora!”
He jumped up with open arms. She threw a glance toward the boy and beckoned to Amos. He followed her into a small multi-mirrored dressing room, where she shut the door and stood with her back to it, hands behind her. “Didn’t you get my letter?”
“What letter? I never heard from you.”
“I wrote you a very long letter, Amos, back in September.”
“It hadn’t arrived by the time I left.”
“What made you come back?”
“The Eilat news. I flew home as soon as I could.”
“I see. So how was Stanford?”
“What was the letter about, motek [sweet]?” She was acting strangely, a bit stunned, perhaps.
“Oh, what you would call kvetching, I guess.” Amos decided to cut through this nonsense, and made to take her in his arms, whereupon she whipped a hand from behind her back, and held it clenched under his nose. “About this, actually, if you want to know.”
“L’Azazel!” The plain gold band was the very long letter in one stark fact. “You didn’t really marry Ben, Dvora?”
“I said I would. I swore I would. You knew that.” Her voice began to break, and her eyes to brim. “And I love Ben, and I’m happier than I ever thought I could be, and I’m two months pregnant. B’seder [Okay]? And I’ll have to quit this job soon, and I don’t care a bit, Ben makes a fine living with his filling station. So what can I do for you, Amos Pasternak?”
He took a moment to find his voice. “Just be happy, Dvora, that’s all. Have a long happy life, and a wonderful family. Congratulations, and congratulate Ben for me, he’s very lucky.”
She choked out one word, “Hazzer [Swine],” and d
isappeared with a doorslam, leaving Amos looking at half a dozen nonplussed images of himself and thinking ruefully, Talk about reprisal! Threading through the Hadassah ladies, he left the shop and saw a new blue Porsche pull up at the curb, out of which jumped another romantic misfire of his, Daphna Luria.
“Amos Pasternak!” Sprightly tone, flirtatious smile. “Why aren’t you in California?”
An Israeli query, that. He had not talked to Daphna Luria for nearly a year, and they moved in different circles, but here everyone tended to know everything about everybody else. Somewhat asphyxiating, at times. “Nice car,” he said to the young driver as he got out, an American by his clothes, his haircut, and his callow look, not to mention the exotic automobile.
“This is Noah’s cousin from New York,” said Daphna. “Dzecki Barkowe. He’s made aliya.”
“He has? Kol ha’kavod,” said Amos, perceiving the resemblance, but guessing that this fellow was no Noah and would probably not last long here.
“Actually, Amos might be the one to talk to,” she said to Dzecki, as the men shook hands.
“What about?” Amos inquired.
Dzecki said in clumsy slow Hebrew with New York inflections, “My draft service. I’m thinking maybe I should go in now, get the three years over with. A crash course in being an Israeli, you might say.”
“A real question.” Amos shrugged. “Just don’t be hasty. Once in, you can’t get out. Daphna, how’s Noah?”
“He’ll be all right, but he’s still in much pain. We’re going to visit him after I pick up a new dress. My aunt gives me big bargains.”
“Bad business, the Eilat sinking,” said the American. “But I’ll bet the Egyptians will be plenty sorry.” He trailed after Daphna, as she went into the shop with a farewell wave at Amos.
Why had they never clicked, he and Daphna? Unlike Dvora she was mighty bright, extremely well read, sure of herself, maybe a bit too aware that she was a Luria, a squadron leader’s daughter, and very pretty, if no Dvora; also given to leftish antimilitary patter, which she considered smart and he thought an unserious nuisance. Whatever the reason, their few dates had fizzled. Noah Barak was welcome to Daphna Luria, since she fancied him. There was a real mentsch, Noah Barak. Noah had had rotten luck, but at least he was alive and recovering. Amos meant to visit him soon.
