Boca Mournings

by Steven M. Forman

  I donʼt love these Jews. I donʼt even like most of them. I donʼt like the Arabs and Christians any better, but I donʼt hate any of them either. I am very confused.

  I had not responded to Buford’s e-mails but I responded to this one.

  Randolph,

  It is not important that you like people who are different than you. It is only important that you let them live in peace. You can do it.

  Eddie

  E-mail excerpt from Israel - October 2005:

  I am an orderly at the Hadassah Hospital at Ein Karem in southwest Jerusalem. I like the work, but this place confuses me.

  I thought of my own visit to Hadassah Hospital. It was confusing. Enemies slept side by side, swaddled in bloody bandages like immobile mummies, their lives mending or ending randomly; all in the name of God.

  Gloria in excelsis Deo, Glory to God in the highest.

  BING!

  Baruck ata Adonai, Blessed art you our God.

  BANG!!

  Allah Akbar, God is great.

  BOOM!

  Excerpt from the same Buford October e-mail:

  I talked to a Palestinian patient the other day who lost a leg. He was a victim of a suicide bombing. He said he was not a terrorist himself but he had no anger for the bomber. He tried to explain the Palestinian cause to me and Jihad . . . Holy War. His argument seemed reasonable. An Israeli soldier two beds away told me his side of the story and he sounded reasonable too. I donʼt know who to believe and have decided to learn more. This is a new way of thinking for me. Is that why you sent me here?

  Buford had broken through the gravitational pull of hatred.

  Blast off!

  That’s one small step for a man . . . I thought.

  I plummeted back to Earth two days later.

  E-mail from Israel - October 2005:

  Dear Mr. Perlmutter,

  I regret to inform you that Randolph Buford was killed today by a suicide bomber on a bus in Tel Aviv. The Israeli government will be contacting Randolphʼs mother with the official notice, but I am writing to you on a personal basis.

  I felt bile rising in my stomach and fought the urge to vomit.

  Randolph Buford died saving my life and the lives of several other passengers by shielding our bodies with his own an instant before the explosion. His act of heroism saved Muslims, Jews, and Christians, all of whom believe it was fate that put Randolph between them and harmʼs way.

  The survivors and their loved ones would like to honor Randolph with a memorial service here in Israel. We request your permission and attendance. We will make all necessary travel and financial arrangements on your behalf and we will plan the service at your convenience. We will also arrange for Randolphʼs body to be transported to the U.S. on your return flight.

  If Mrs. Buford should decline our invitation, we will have her sonʼs remains transported as soon as possible to the airport of her choice in the United States.

  Please extend our deepest sympathy to Mrs. Buford and tell her that her son died a hero. We await your response.

  Sincerely, Sergeant Zivah Oz

  Crimson spots burst in front of my eyes like popping balloons of red paint. I slammed my fist on my desk. “This is not fair,” I roared as a fireworks display went off in my head. I heard tapping on my office door.

  “Eddie,” the receptionist’s voice came through the door. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped and heard her footsteps retreating down the hall.

  I called Claudette and told her.

  “That’s terrible,” she said emotionally. “Does his mother know yet?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “I’m not good at this,” I said.

  “No one is,” Claudette said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  We hung up.

  I reached for the phone several times but my hand kept coming up short. Finally, I grabbed the damn thing and punched in Mrs. Buford’s number. She answered.

  “Mrs. Buford, this is Eddie Perlmutter,” I said as calmly as I could manage.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said before I could utter another word.

  “Yes,” I told her. “He died this morning in a suicide bombing.”

  “He was a suicide bomber?” she asked in disbelief.

  “No, no, no,” I said quickly. “Your son died a hero, Mrs. Buford.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me, Mr. Perlmutter,” she said in a shaky voice. “My son was no hero.”

  She started to cry.

  “I’m not lying,” I said. “Can I read you the e-mail I received from his Israeli supervisor this morning?”

  “What difference will that make?” she said angrily.

  “I think it will make a lot of difference,” I said calmly.

  Her silence indicated she would listen.

  I read Sergeant Oz’s e-mail to her slowly from beginning to end.

  She sniffled. “I can’t believe anyone would want to honor my son.”

  “He died a hero. He may not have lived like a hero, Mrs. Buford,” I said, “but it appears he died like one.”

  She seemed stunned. “What should I do?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Buford,” I said. “I can tell you that I’ve already decided to go to Israel to honor your son’s memory.”

  She hesitated for a moment.

  “I’ll go with you,” she finally answered, and then she was crying again.

  I expected the worst: flying fourteen hours to a foreign funeral with the mother of the deceased. Martha Buford did cry often, but it was a dignified sorrow. I was very impressed.

  She asked the same questions I asked Danny Baker on my first flight to Israel, and I tried to answer her. When the men in black got up to pray, I explained the chanting as best I could and why they had turned away from us.

  She told me about the little apartment in Boca Raton she had rented and the job-hunting she had done. She told me she had decided to stay in the area and had no intention of following her husband to South Carolina. She was worried about her daughter, Eva, but felt powerless to battle for her custody against her husband. He was too strong for her to fight.

  I held her hand when she seemed fragile and I think I helped her get through the flight.

  I explained the clapping and singing when we touched down on the runway at Ben-Gurion International Airport. She thought it was a nice tradition.

  Sergeant Zivah Oz was waiting for us when we got off the plane. She shook my hand. “Welcome back,” she said somberly. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said taking the grieving mother’s hand.

  Mrs. Buford smiled bravely. “Thank you for meeting us.”

  “Your son saved my life,” Zivah Oz told Martha Buford.

  The floodgates of emotion burst open and the grieving mother threw her arms around the young sergeant and cried. Zivah Oz held the woman firmly and patted her back. They rocked in each other’s arms.

  Mrs. Buford’s sobbing subsided but they remained holding each other. Martha Buford let go first, leaned back, and looked at Sergeant Oz. She stroked the girl’s cheek with the palm of her hand.

  “You’re so beautiful,” the older woman said.

  “All the lives Randolph saved were beautiful,” Oz told us.

  The sergeant drove us to the King David Hotel and accompanied us to our adjoining suites facing the Old City. Our luggage had already been delivered. We stood on the balcony of Martha Buford’s room looking at Tel Aviv and the Old City walls.

  “This is unreal,” Mrs. Buford said.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Buford, it’s very real,” the Israeli soldier told her.

  We went to the lobby where we ordered cold drinks. The two women sat on a sofa, and I pulled over a nearby chair.

  “Tell me how my son died,” Mrs. Buford said, her voice cracking.

  “First, I would like to tell you how he lived,” Oz said.r />
  “Sergeant, I’m his mother. I know how he lived,”

  “Not here, not in this place,” Oz reminded her.

  “You’re right, of course,” Randolph’s mother said. “Tell me.”

  Sergeant Oz moved closer to Martha Buford and spoke softly. “When your son arrived in Israel, he was like a caged animal: frightened and frightening,” Oz said. “We sent him to Havat Hashomer, a training camp in the north. He was assigned to the Mak’hal division, for special population groups.”

  “What’s a special population group?” Mrs. Buford asked.

  “It’s for problem people,” Oz said diplomatically.

  Boris Kuznetsov would have called them a group of “fahk-ups.”

  “I suppose he fit right in.” Mrs. Buford looked down at her lap.

  “To the contrary,” Oz said, “he was a misfit in a company of misfits.”

  For sixty minutes Oz told a grieving mother about the last few months of her son’s life.

  “Randolph barely spoke during his first month here,” Oz noted.

  “That would be my fault,” I interrupted. “I told him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Well, he took your advice to heart and talked to no one,” she said.

  “Did something change after the first month?” Mrs. Buford asked.

  “Randolph changed,” the sergeant said. “He was the most unfit in a company of misfits and he blamed everyone else for his shortcomings.”

  “His father was like that,” Mrs. Buford said, nodding.

  “When he finally realized he had no one to blame but himself, he started trying harder. In fact, he became the hardest-working member of the company. He went from last to first. The entire Mak’am group was proud of him. He became an inspiration.”

  Tears welled in Martha Buford’s eyes. “He died when he was just starting to live,” the grieving mother said.

  “Many young men here are cut down before they grow up,” Oz said. “Your son saw many young people die when he worked at Hadassah Hospital.”

  “He e-mailed me about the hospital,” I said. “It made a great impression on him.”

  “He told me about one Palestinian college student in particular,” Sergeant Oz told us. “The boy’s name was Ibrahim Elwan and he was a victim of a suicide bombing. He lost a leg. The attack took place at a Tel Aviv restaurant and the bomber was Palestinian. Despite his injuries, Elwan told Randolph that he had no animosity for the bomber and that he shared the man’s beliefs.”

  “Randolph wrote to me about this guy,” I said, remembering an e-mail.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Oz said. “Randolph was very impressed by Elwan. Then again, Randolph was equally impressed by Shlomo Lev.”

  “Who’s Shlomo Lev?” Martha Buford asked.

  “The Israeli college student in the bed next to Elwan,” Oz explained. “He sustained a head injury in the same explosion.”

  “Did Lev and Elwan ever talk to each other?” I asked.

  “All the time,” Oz said.

  “Did they agree on anything?” I asked.

  “Randolph said they argued about everything until Lev died,” Oz told us. “Randolph said Elwan cried when Lev died.”

  This is a strange place, I thought.

  “What happened to Elwan?” Martha asked.

  “He was released from the hospital, walking on a prosthesis designed by a Jewish doctor,” Oz told us.

  “Did my son ever see Elwan again?” Mrs. Buford asked.

  “Yes,” Oz said solemnly. “I was with Randolph at the time, along with some other members of our unit.”

  “Did Randolph get a chance to talk to Elwan again?”

  “In a way, I suppose he did,” Oz told her. “We were in a crowded bus in Tel Aviv, and apparently Elwan got on the bus after we did. Randolph pointed him out to me and called his name. The young Palestinian seemed startled to see Randolph and a mournful look came over his face. Suddenly your son grabbed my arm and threw me to the floor. On my way down, I heard someone scream ‘Allahu Akbar.’ Then the bus exploded.”

  I wonder if Ibrahim Elwan’s final thoughts on earth were about the seventy-two virgins he was going to meet in heaven . . . or about the young American orderly he was about to murder.

  That night I dreamed in black and white with English subtitles.

  I dreamed that the Romans marched into Israel and tossed out the Jews.

  “Who burned our temple?” a Jew in my dream asked.

  A Roman soldier who looked like Sylvester Stallone shouted, “Yo, Abraham, I did it.”

  “Finders keepers,” one Arab decided when the land was mostly vacated.

  “What if the Jews or Romans come back?” another Arab asked.

  “Elhasi teezi.”

  “I don’t think they will kiss your ass.”

  And so it went for two thousand years.

  “I was here first, Yassir.”

  “You were not, Hymie.”

  “Was too.”

  “Was not.”

  “Khul khara we moot (Eat shit and die).”

  I dreamed about the Great Arab revolts of the 1930s and 1940s, which weren’t so great for the Arabs.

  Then suddenly my dream shifted to a 1951 baseball game at the Polo Grounds in New York City. A guy named Bobby Thompson had just hit a home run for the New York Giants against the Brooklyn Dodgers. An announcer named Russ Hodges screamed into a microphone, “The Giants win the Pennant. The Giants win the Pennant” . . . over and over again.

  “The Giants win the Jihad,” I shouted and woke myself up. I jumped out of bed in a daze. I was totally confused. I felt like my brain was melting and all my memories were blending together into a senseless mush.

  I looked at the clock on my nightstand. It was three-thirty in the morning. I flopped down on my pillow and prayed for dreamless sleep. Prayer reception apparently is good in this part of the world because I slept peacefully the rest of the night and didn’t wake up until my wakeup call.

  I put on my King David Hotel bathrobe, walked out on my balcony, and took a deep breath of holy air. The sun was shinning. It was a beautiful morning for a memorial service.

  I met Sergeant Oz in the lobby at nine.

  “Mrs. Buford will be here in a minute,” she told me. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I was restless. I had a dream that Sylvester Stallone burned down the Holy Temple.”

  “Rocky Balboa?”

  “It was just a dream.” I shrugged. “I also dreamed that a baseball player named Bobby Thompson hit a home run for the New York Giants and beat the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the Pennant.”

  “What is a Pennant?”

  “It’s a championship flag.”

  “Who are the Giants?”

  “They were a baseball team from New York,” I explained. “But now they’re in San Francisco.”

  “Because they won the Pennant?”

  “No.”

  “Who are the Dodgers?”

  “They were a baseball team from Brooklyn but they moved to Los Angeles.”

  “Because they lost the Pennant?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said with a shrug.

  Mrs. Buford joined us. She shook my hand and hugged Sergeant Oz.

  “Did you sleep well?” Oz asked Mrs. Buford.

  “I had a restless night,” Martha Buford told her.

  “So did Mr. Perlmutter,” Oz said. “He dreamed that Sylvester Stallone burned down the Holy Temple and Bobby Thompson hit a home run.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Buford said.

  “I don’t either,” I told them.

  A four-door, black Mercedes sedan was waiting for us outside the hotel. Zivah Oz got in the front with a young man in an IDF uniform. Mrs. Buford and I got in the back.

  The soldier turned to face us. “Mrs. Buford,” the soldier said courteously. “I just wanted to tell you that your son did a very brave thing, and you should be very proud of him.”

  I glanced at Randolph’
s mother. She looked flustered, as if no one had ever complimented her son before.

  “That’s very nice of you to say, young man,” she replied, misty-eyed.

  “Where are we going this morning?” I asked.

  “First, we are going to Mount Herzl,” Sergeant Oz explained. “It is the site of Israel’s national and military cemetery.”

  “Will the memorial service be there?” Mrs. Buford asked.

  “In that area,” Oz said.

  Mount Herzl is located on a hilltop overlooking the Jerusalem Forest.

  “This memorial park was named after the father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. He is buried over there.” Sergeant Oz waved a hand in the direction of a monument. “Three prime ministers are buried here: Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin. The entire area is called Har Hazi karon, Mount of Memories.”

  She told us that thousands of IDF soldiers were buried on the north slope of Mount Herzl and Ya’d Vasham was not far away; two mountains alive with millions of memories of the dead.

  We walked silently among the graves, reading names and ages. Most had died too young.

  “These men and women were heroes, like your son,” Oz said.

  “Could Randolph have been buried here?” she asked.

  “Legally yes, technically it would have been difficult,” Oz told her. “There is an Orthodox Jewish population in this country that does not believe Jews and Gentiles should be buried in the same cemetery.”

  “After death, why does it matter?” Mrs. Buford asked.

  “Religion and traditions are sometimes beyond reason,” the sergeant said.

  We spent an hour among the graves and were emotionally weary when we left.

  “So many sacrifices,” Mrs. Buford remarked.

  “There will be more today and more tomorrow,” Oz said.

  My inner police alarm alerted me to the presence of a small group of people walking in our direction. Suddenly we were surrounded.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. Buford asked nervously.

  “Mrs. Buford,” Sergeant Oz said. “These are the people who have come to honor your son. He saved their lives or the lives of their loved ones. They are Randolph’s legacy and they asked to be at his memorial service.”