Where is he? Where?
— In the void.
Where is she? Where is she from?
— From you.
She dips the napkin in the melting snow and presses it against his forehead. The icy water runs over his eyelids, down his nose, into the furrows of his wrinkled face.
The coolness invading his skin overwhelms him. The water runs and runs. Faster. Stronger. Overflows his bed. Spills onto the floor. Rises up the walls. Submerges the room. The furniture floats. The current gurgles, then growls. Colourless swirls of foam.
She’s drowning me. She’s drowning me!
— Dive, Arik.
He’s in the river.
Vera. His mother. The rifle.
The image assails him.
Swallows him.
Vera. The rifle. The forest.
Vera. The bullet. The river.
The shot that knocked him into the river.
Water, ice cold against the blood that seeps from his stomach. The forest sweeps by alongside the river. Amid the bare trunks of the pine trees, his mother’s silhouette, the rifle brought to her shoulder, barrel still smoking. Vera shrinking as the rapids carry him away.
No, I will not die like this!
He flails his arms. His legs.
Swim. Swim. Swim!
He orders himself. Consoles himself. Castigates himself. Anything to stay alive.
Something grabs his heel. Pulls him under. The water rises. The strip of blue sky narrows. He stretches his neck, stretches a hand up to put an end to the flood. Water swallows the sky. Fills his mouth. His throat. His nostrils. His eyes.
There’s no horizon anymore. Everything is floating around him.
Tentacles wrap around his legs.
Arms, hands, fingers grip his thighs.
The water churns.
Images surface.
Rivers.
Valleys.
Cliffs.
Detonations.
Screams.
Villages.
Wreckage.
Bodies.
Walls.
Streets.
Craters.
— Arik!
The woman’s voice echoes in the water.
— Count the years. Count the deaths: 1948 … ’53 … ’56 … ’67 … ’71 … ’73 … ’82 … ’87 … 2002 … 2005.
He kicks to the surface like a man crazed.
— Breathe!
He gulps a lungful of air. The current sucks him back to the bottom of the river.
— Count the villages. Count the battlefields, Arik. Deir Yassin. Kafr Quasem. Qibya. Suez. Sinai. Jerusalem. Golan. Beirut. Qana. Ramallah. Gaza!
He coughs.
— Breathe!
The tentacles let go of him. To the light. Open lips. Quickly.
Oxygen. Oxygen!
— Count the camps, Arik. Jadaliyya. Khan Younis. Rafah. Balata. Jenin. Sabra. Shatila. Nahr al-Bared. Ain al-Hilweh. Al-Yarmuk. Zarqa. Burj al- …
His lungs. Contract. Explode. The air escapes him. From his nostrils. From his mouth. Bubbles, bubbles everywhere! They fuse together. Coagulate. Form yet more tentacles that wrap around and enchain him. Then it starts again.
Tossed to the surface.
— Breathe!
Sucked to the bottom.
Drowned. Spat out. Swallowed. Spat out again.
— Count the settlements, Arik. Ten … Twenty … Forty … Sixty … Eighty. A hundred … A hundred and twenty … A hundred and forty … Count the barriers. The lands. The olive trees, uprooted. The fields, torched. Count them. Count them. Count them!
Her voice presses and presses against his body. His bones crack. His lungs are crushed.
He is seaweed.
Suddenly, a rock.
Desperately, he latches onto it. Rubs up against its stone face. Kicks his legs. Anything to shake off the tentacles. The tearing of his skin. His legs sucked to the point of bleeding. It’s him or the monster. Better to be flayed to death than to let himself be devoured. One after another the tentacles loosen. They float randomly for an instant before being carried off by the river.
He pushes to the surface. The bank is not far, but the current is too strong and he’s too weak.
— Arik!
The voice comes from the edge of the water. A dark silhouette against the sun. A woman’s silhouette.
— Arik!
It’s her. Still her. The woman-voice throws him a rope.
— Grab the rope!
Arik clings to the rock as if to life itself.
— Are you ready to die? Let yourself go, Arik. Close your eyes, let go of the rock.
He clings harder to the rock.
— Do you want to know who I am? Grab the rope!
She throws it to him a second time and Arik seizes it, lets himself be pulled through the rapids.
The closer he comes to shore, the warmer the water is. The current slackens. The air is welcoming. The light is sweet. He moves forward, forward some more, his exhausted body following the voice. Arms pull him from the water. He collapses onto the wet ground.
— Arik. Years pass. 2006, 2007, 2008 … Arik! Time flies ... 2009, 2010 … The blood flows. Do you want to die?
No. He doesn’t want to die.
Suddenly, a shadow. The whinny of a horse. The comforting smell of straw and sweat. Of skin warmed by the sun. A ridge impregnated with dust. The smell of manure coloured purple by wild hyacinth. Odours of his childhood.
He is lifted up, lightly, into the clouds. He floats. Rocked by the horse’s gait. No more river. No more blue. Sand surrounds him. And rocks. A red horizon. A dark sky.
— She’s waiting for you in the cave.
The woman’s voice reverberates, echo upon echo. Blends with the drip-drip of water. With the steady beat of the horse’s hooves.
Then … Silence.
The air is humid. The earth mineral. Volcanic organ pipes. Copper. Bronze. The odours of the desert.
The horse sets him down.
He sinks into a deep sleep.
LILY
How handsome you are when you’re sleeping, my love. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times you’ve snored this peacefully beside me. You think that by buying Sycamore Farm you’ll find peace. That this pitiful patch of farmland in the middle of the desert will cure your insomnia. That working it will take away the filth of the city. That raising animals will save you from the toxicity of politics.
— Lily, I’m offering you the largest canvas in the world. Paint us a paradise!
I let my dreams run away with themselves. My painterly intuitions. My decorating talents. I plant roses and anemones. Red. White. Yellow. Violet. You erect a surveillance tower on the roof of the farmhouse, with a view of the surrounding countryside. Ever the soldier. Binoculars. Always on guard. Always your thumb on the ground. The hills. The valleys. You declare to the distant mountains:
— Judea and Samaria, I’m here!
Battle lines.
Routes to furrow versus routes to follow.
Flags on the peaks awaiting settlements.
From up on top, a thousand strategies form in your head. You rush down the stairs. Just by the way you shout out, my love! I know. With impatience, with excitement. I know. It’s time to draw up a list.
How many diplomats, generals, and politicians have we welcomed to the farm? Wooing them, making sure each has his audience? Putting them at the heart of our plans? Their presence insults and exults me at the same time.
Respectable men assiduously presenting themselves. Democrat. Diplomat. Revolutionary. Popular leader. Each has a particular manner, a particular brand. None of them want to shake hands with Ariel Sharon, the Butcher of Beirut. But they’re happy enough to share o
ur table in a discreet and intimate gathering. To explain from aperitif to dessert why they can’t acknowledge their loyalty publicly. How it amuses and appalls me to listen to them. Especially the Arab leaders. I gauge their lack of power and conniving by their compliments and false indignation.
— It’s all a masquerade, my dear. And you, you enjoy it. Be my magic flute. Aren’t you my accomplice, Lily?
But those men, Arik. This one with his English tea. That one with his American beer. Another with his Russian vodka. Yet another with his European wine. These cultured men who send dozens, hundreds of men, women, and children to their deaths! Who kill without setting a foot on a battlefield. Who preach peace and leave us to clean their dirty laundry! But yes, it does please me to feed them with my own hands. To be seen in their company. To play the role to the hilt in order to achieve our goal.
They look me up and down lasciviously. The unmarried ones wonder how such an ugly man landed such a luscious butterfly. The married ones envy the desire they see in your eyes.
I am not a butterfly.
My beauty is my weapon. They inhale my scent like it’s a drug. This house is my web. Every object in it is bait. The decor is impeccable. The smells make their mouths water. Melted butter. Foie gras. Poppies. Paprika. Pecans. Túrós Gombóc. Szilvás Gombóc. Dumplings with pears. Cheese dumplings. I indulge every whim and taste. Delicacies. Curiosities. Fantasies. With my beauty, I dominate them. Disarm them. A bit of Hungarian here. Some German there. A French joke. An Italian song. Some Yiddish. Some Hebrew. Some Russian. They think like they’ve entered the den of a bear. Dangerous, yes, but clumsy and fat.
They are in my web!
Sometimes, listening to you from the kitchen, I laugh. Other times you make chills run up and down my spine. You threaten. Convince. Persuade. You make it all sound so inevitable. No one around the table doubts you for a second. You do as you like. They admire and hate you for that.
No time to storm the fortress. To give orders. To risk your neck. To hell with the law, with hierarchies, with fatuous egos! They support you, the cowards, even while they hope you fail. We know as much, don’t we, my love? In the eyes of these mandarins and allies, so-called, you’re just an attack dog. A useful tool. Nothing more.
— What does it matter, Lily! They’ll always need me. And me, I don’t need their love!
Your ripostes come so quickly you forget whom you’re lying to, Arik. You so want their love. For them to respect and admire you. You’ll do anything to hold that forbidden fruit.
War. For the sake of the Jews. For the sake of your own self-esteem.
War. For Israel. To wreak vengeance on all those who resented you in Kfar Malal. The neighbours who never voted for you. You, the only man to get out of that hellhole.
I am your shield. I watch out for your desperate need to be liked. I’ve seen you capitulate at the slightest display of affection. So I buttress the warrior rather than the neglected child. Nudge you towards the most invincible version of yourself. Chase away your remorse, your hesitation. Only I understand the demands war makes of you. The heartlessness. The malice. The cost. In love. In hate. In white nights.
Once the dinner guests have left, once the plans for the next attack on the enemy have been made — once night has fallen — certainty abandons you. With your nose in your files, you pace the room. Muttering to yourself. Asking my opinion about such and such. As soon as you figure I’ve fallen asleep, you leave.
But I’m only pretending to sleep, my love. I wait for the door to creak shut. For your departing footsteps. Then I get up to prepare for tomorrow’s battle. Sycamore Farm is not Eden. It’s a fortress. Forever in a state of alert, arms at the ready even on feast days.
Every night I retreat into myself. I rummage through the arsenal we’ve prepared in case of attacks. Crises. Scandals. Plots. Who but me, your Lily, would do this, Arik? Defend you. Support you when yours is the sole voice contradicting the rest? Surround you when they beat a retreat? Vanquish the enemy with my smile. My stratagems. I wait for you to leave the room so I can ready us for the storm.
For when friends complain about my imposing presence, or accuse me of making things worse instead of soothing your temper tantrums. When they insinuate I have too much influence, that I encourage your bullheadedness, stir up your predatory reflexes, I know I’ve hit the bull’s eye. And if their venom poisons you, I apply the antidote. Discreetly. Do it in my own way while you contemplate the horizon.
Ah, here you are, snoring so peacefully. Does your heart have to stop before you can sleep? Sleep, szerelmem, sleep my love. I’ll say it in my own language — in the Hungarian you find so irresistible.
Savour the quiet. Let yourself disintegrate. Return to the desert. Let your fat melt. Let hunger eat at your insides. Death is not so terrible. Who knows what will be left of you? What you’d become if you let yourself go.
I am a rock.
It’s wonderful, being a rock, my love. Not to have to move anymore. Never to have to reveal what’s boiling inside you. To let time, sand, air, and salt shape you. Without resisting. Without reacting. To be indifferent to the forces of erosion. To have weight. To be solid. Unshakeable. To dye myself every colour. Rust. Bronze. The grey-green of oxidized stone. And the music! The echo of dewdrops on my back.
Ploc. Ploc. Ploc.
Mineral life hums at the lower depths of death. If only you could taste it, my love … I’m a grain of salt on the tongue of the Earth. I dissolve in the mouths of the mountains of Sinai.
Yes, Arik, we’re in one of Sinai’s caves. That infernal triangle. A diamond around the neck of the Mediterranean Sea. You never forget the name of this desert that so impresses and terrifies you. How often have you said to your troops over the radio: “We have entered Africa”? You, as delirious as the old explorers were, dreaming of indigo women just before the worst comes to pass.
A rout. An ambush. A miracle. A tragedy.
I’m in you like the Sinai.
I’m in your dreams, your nightmares, like the Sinai.
What moments are you searching for, my love? What pitfalls? What glory? The Mitla disaster of 1956? The catastrophe averted in 1973? What good does it do you to revive your quarrels with the desert? To revisit your retreats and advances? Are you hoping for the hurrahs of the people, the settlers, your comrades in arms? They’re all alike, Arik. Scorpions under rocks. They scuttle out of their hideaways after every campaign. As jealous of your failures as they are of your success.
For you, my love, I became a rock. I crush scorpions exactly where they think they are safest. Dead or alive, I’m on guard for you. I talk to you even when you’re not listening. I tell you everything, even when you’re unaware of me doing so. Here in the Sinai, everything erodes except the truth.
They’ve wanted your hide since day one. And since the very first day they’ve shoved me aside. From the very first day, they’ve tarnished our love by shoving their religion and laws down our throats.
“Thou shalt not marry thy wife’s sister, Leviticus 18:18!” shout the hypocritical colonizers who hug you in the streets of their settlements — yes, let’s call them by their name, my love: colonizers. There’s no one but you and me in this desert. Where would they be without you, tell me?
Fed and housed on the teat of the rest of the population. They multiply like rabbits while our children risk their lives in military service — obligatory except for them! Imposters wearing religious masks. Our young are posted for hours out at the checkpoints, have become executioners, gatekeepers, guard dogs, in order for their children, nestled in their flashy new houses — houses given to their parents like candy — to play in their fortresses. And then they have the nerve, these profiteers, to lecture us and vote against you any time you ask them to show a minimum of common sense.
— The longer the beard, the bigger the lie!
That’s what my father used to
say. He was a rabbi, but never a fool. I could have done what all the other Orthodox children did: flash my exemption card and escape military service. But I didn’t. I did my part. For Israel. For that bunch of ingrates!
It wasn’t the Messiah who established the first settlements by placing military camps in the heart of the conquered territories. It wasn’t the Messiah who renamed them Judea and Samaria. And it was certainly not the Messiah who redrew the maps and borders under the guise of agricultural, infrastructural, and social-development projects. But so what? In their estimation, no one is pure enough.
You, too much the politician for their liking.
Me, Lily the seductress.
The one who drove her sister, Gali, to suicide and then stole her husband.
Lily the provocateur.
Who turned you against them all.
Lily guilty as charged!
She who welcomed tragedy into the house, as if Gour, my cherished nephew, all that remained of Gali, died at the age of eleven because of a curse — or, worse, to sanctify our transgressions.
You think I’m unaware, my love, of how all the slander bored into your soul? How many hours of sleep the hostile world stole from you? How every ounce of respect was drawn from your body as you defended friends and enemies? They will never be rid of you, or of me; they’ll never break the bond that solders us to each other. I don’t regret loving you. I’ve loved you since I was born, and I’ll love you after I’m dead.
Before Gali, after Gali.
Before Gour, after Gour.
The wind calls me to the windows during the sleepless nights that punctuate our life at the farm. I see you leaving the stables, your long shadow beneath the moon. In the blackness I see the elongated silhouette of the young soldier in mourning.
You were my brother-in-law. But suddenly, all I could see was the man. And, for the first time, you saw me, your sister-in-law, as a woman. Two beings, two wounded souls. And between us, little Gour, like Gali’s gift to us. My nephew, from then on my son. And I, his mother.
It didn’t last.
Like everything else in this country, time is a mirage. Never has a land demanded so much from eternity. Never has eternity been so elusive. We have barely returned from burying Gali when life wrenches Gour from our grasp. Why such cruelty? This is the question that gnaws at you during the nights when the ghosts of Gali and Gour visit, and you console yourself by talking to the horses. This is how you hold your vigil.
I Am Ariel Sharon Page 6
