Nir walked along the edge of the park. Up until a few minutes ago, Eliana had once again been holding on to his arm. It had been a little awkward, but he understood what she was doing. Hanging on to the arm of Nir Tavor gave her a little street cred, and he didn’t want to deny that from her.
Rumors had legs of their own, especially in a country like Israel. Everyone had heard whispered stories of the Tavor boy who was now some special agent with the Mossad. The fact that his picture had shown up in the paper on several occasions hadn’t helped matters. Few people, other than folks who had been around as he was growing up, said anything to him, and absolutely no one asked him about his work, which was a plus. For now, he would circle the park with Michael, watching the kids enjoy the Purim fair and pretending that no one was watching him.
Elias could have been with them also. However, he had made the mistake of voicing an offhand comment questioning the commitment of the present government to bring home the hostages. That had set Nir’s father off. Their ensuing argument had ended with Elias gathering up Shayna and their two crying sons and driving off. The tension that remained at the table was thick as everyone just sat there.
Finally, Nir had reached across the table and said, “Since Elias is gone, mind if I have his brisket?” He lifted the man’s plate and shoveled the food onto his own. “Très magnifique, ima,” he added, lifting his fingers to give a chef’s kiss.
Everyone burst out laughing. At least, everyone except for his abba, who pushed his chair back and stormed away from the table. Nir’s ima began to rise to follow him, but Michael stopped her. “Let him be, ima. He’ll get over it or he won’t. Let’s not let him ruin our Purim.”
After hesitating a moment, she sat back down. “I’m glad you like the beef, matok,” she said, grabbing Nir’s hand.
Maya, the youngest of Nir’s nieces, began to sing:
Chag Purim, Chag Purim, Chag gadol layehudim…
Soon everyone had grabbed hands and joined in:
Masechot, ra’ashanim, shirim verikudim.
Hava narishah—rash, rash, rash…
As that line rang out they twisted their hands, pretending to spin the noisemakers they were singing about.
Hava narishah—rash, rash, rash,
Hava narishah—rash, rash, rash,
Bara’ashanim!
Grabbing hands again, they began the second verse of the Purim song. With his mother’s hand in his right and little Maya’s hand in his left, Nir couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed his family quite so much.
Could it be because abba and Elias aren’t here? Probably.
Leaving Hannah back at home with their mother, Michael and Nir had walked the girls up to the park for the fair. Reaching into his pocket, Michael pulled out a pack of Noblesse cigarettes. Turning the box upside down, he tapped it a couple times into his hand before opening it and pulling one out. He slipped it between his lips and said, “I’m not even going to offer you one.”
“Good. When I die, I want it to be short and sweet.”
Michael laughed as he traded the package for a lighter. He flicked it and took a drag on the cigarette. “I’ve quit these so many times. Even Hannah’s convinced I gave them up a couple years ago.”
Nir shook his head. “I doubt it. She just loves you too much to confront you. Besides, you’ve got prying little eyes all around you, and those little eyes are attached to big mouths.”
Michael took another deep drag before chuckling. “Yeah, those girls love to talk. Hey, did I tell you I’ve been called back into the reserves?”
“Keep at them, Nir,” cheered Mr. Levitz, who owned the Levitz Furniture store downtown. He gave a wave and a thumbs up. Nir nodded to him.
Turning back to his brother, Nir asked, “Aren’t you too old to be called back?”
“In these times, it’s all hands. They’re digging deep for people. Besides, I’m not going to the front lines or anything. Apparently, I’m too old to hold a gun. Instead, they have me requisitioning cars from people.”
That was something new. “How does that work?”
“They have me looking for SUVs to be used as transport by the IDF. If I see an SUV that looks like it’s in good shape, I tell the owner, ‘The military needs your vehicle.’ We work out a reasonable deal, and I drive off in their car.”
Nir was laughing. “Sababa! That definitely sounds like the IDF. You’ve got to have some people who are seriously angry at you.”
“It all depends on the deal I get for them,” Michael said with a wink.
Nir stopped and turned toward his brother. “Wait, didn’t I park next to your SUV in the folks’ front yard?” Nir could picture the white, late-model Chevy Equinox. It was his brother’s pride and joy, and he kept it in pristine condition.
Michael grinned and flicked the butt of his cigarette away. “You did. Unfortunately, I determined that it wasn’t up to the standards needed for the IDF.”
Nir raised his eyebrows at his brother, then laughed and shook his head. They began walking again. It seemed that everyone in the country was running some sort of side hustle. Most were legit, but there were quite a few that balanced on that razor’s edge between legal and maybe a step too far. Part of it came from living in what was still a relatively young nation. But the greater part was simply the history of the Jewish people. You always had to have something else going on, because you never knew when you would be banned from your livelihood or have it taken from you. This reminded Nir of a verse he had heard many years ago from Qoheleth, who said something like, “Sow your seed in the morning and at night keep working, because you don’t know which will be successful, one or the other or both equally.”
But even with those whose side hustles crossed the line into grifts, there were very few who ran them against fellow Jews. Most were directed at people outside of their race. That, too, seemed to come from history. When you were strangers in a foreign land, you had to band together and depend on one another. Besides, from what he could remember, there was a lot in the Mosaic law about not shafting other Jews—not that most Jews these days gave a rip about the Mosaic law.
After a few minutes, Michael spoke up again. “You keeping yourself safe out there? If anything happened to you, it would kill ima. Not sure how abba would react. I think the only thing that would kill him is if a frost took his trees.”
Nir wondered how he should answer. Even though this was his own flesh and blood, most of his life was spent in a bubble that he couldn’t talk about. “I’m trying,” was the best he could come up with.
“And what about the rest of us? I hear the news. I know that the war is coming to the north eventually. Are we okay where we’re at?”
“For now. If you were up around Mount Meron, I’d say to get your family down here to Afula. But at your home in Tiberias? You’re good. There are no worries coming from Jordan, and there are enough targets around Golan to draw the enemy’s fire.”
Michael pulled out his box of cigarettes again and went through the ritual of lighting a fresh one. Once again, Nir raised his eyebrow.
“I don’t want to hear it. Listen, I need to know. How did we miss it? How did we let hundreds of those maniacs over our border? You know that the parents of Hannah’s sister’s husband were slaughtered at Kibbutz Nir Oz?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then how did it happen? We’re supposed to have this great military—and I think we do have a great military. But, my God, how could we miss this?”
Nir had a simple answer. “We underestimated them and overestimated ourselves.”
When Nir said no more, Michael prodded him. “I’m listening.”
“When you see a Palestinian on the street, what do you think? Uneducated. Simple. Someone fit for menial tasks. It’s how so many of the Chinese view the Uyghurs, or the Europeans look at the Muslims, or the Americans treat the Mexicans. We took the Palestinians too lightly, not thinking that they’d actually be able to coordinate an attack across our border. But there were enough smart ones who watched us—not just for months, but for years. Eventually, they figured out a way to come across and kick us in the teeth. What they weren’t smart enough to do was to sustain it. They had plans to keep pushing north, but as soon as the IDF got involved, they scurried back to their burrows.”
“They were also expecting help, weren’t they?”
“They were. This was all part of a grandiose plan overseen by—surprise, surprise—Iran. The ayatollahs were strategizing to launch a coordinated attack using their little axis of evil: Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, along with all their scrub militias in Iraq and Syria. They’d start with a massive barrage of rockets that would wear out the Iron Dome. Then the invasion would start. They figured we would be stretched so thin that we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves.”
Michael took another long drag, then dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his shoe. “Would it have worked?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But we’ve been under worse odds before.”
Nodding, Nir’s brother asked, “So, what happened to this great plan of Khamenei’s?”
Nir laughed quietly and shook his head. “The Palestinians happened. They decided they wanted the glory for themselves, so they launched prematurely, thinking that the others would jump in and back them. But the rest pretty much said, ‘Screw you for not waiting. You got yourselves into this; now get yourselves out.’ Hezbollah sent some rockets, and the militias did a little war dance, but that was pretty much it.”
Michael was shaking his head. “Just when you think there might not be a God.”
Surprised, Nir turned to him.
Michael continued, “No, seriously, Nir. How many times has it been now? Over and over, we’re standing against impossible odds, and we come out on top. I don’t know if the God of the Torah really is out there, but there sure as anything is something or someone out there looking out for us. Wasn’t it David Ben-Gurion who said, ‘With the Jews, anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles isn’t a realist’? And he was an atheist, or at least close to it.”
“Calm down. I agree with you,” Nir said. “I’m just surprised to hear you say it.”
“So, you believe there’s a God?”
How do I answer this? I’m pretty sure there is, but I don’t know who He is. I certainly can’t mention anything about Nicole’s God.
“Let me just say that I’ve been in situations where only the supernatural kept me alive. Situations so close and timing so precise that you either believe the world is made up of continuously unexplainable circumstances, or there is a God watching over us. Now, don’t ask me any more than that, because I can’t answer you. I’m still trying to figure all this out myself. What I do know is that when I’m going into a dangerous situation, I no longer feel like I’m doing it on my own.”
“Interesting,” was all that Michael said as they continued their walk.
“Nir, we’re all so proud of you!” It was Mrs. Goltz from his primary school’s front office calling to him from a picnic table surrounded with people. Nir recognized her husband, but no one else. He waved to them and kept moving on, while she appeared to be giving them his full curriculum vitae.
Michael stopped and took Nir by the arm. “Just promise me that this is the last time this will happen. Little Maya still spends most nights in bed with Hannah and me. These kids are all growing up wondering when the bad men will appear to kill them or steal them away. I don’t know, achi. It’s like this is a damaged generation thanks to those pigs down in Gaza. Our children are going to carry this with them for the rest of their lives.”
He reached for his pack of cigarettes again, but then stuffed it back into his shirt pocket. “Listen, I don’t know what you do. I don’t want to know because I’d probably freak out that my little brother was living that kind of life. Just swear to me that you are going to make those dogs who are responsible for this pay.”
Nir knew he couldn’t say anything. Instead, he just held his brother’s eyes.
Finally, Michael began nodding. He put his hand on Nir’s shoulder. “Good. Good. You get them, achi. And I can assure you that you have people back home who will be praying to whatever God is up there to keep you safe.”
“Can’t ask for more than that,” said Nir. He turned, and the two of them went looking for Michael’s kids.