We have no flag, and we need one. If we desire to lead many men, we must raise a symbol above their heads. I would suggest a white flag, with seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our pure new life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working day. For we shall march into the Promised Land carrying the badge of honour.
Theodor Herzl, Jewish Austro-Hungarian writer, from his book The Jewish State (1896)
‘Mademoiselle, why are you crying?’
I turned to my right, not realizing that I was now sitting beside a little girl. The bus rocked back and forth. The smell of petrol was overwhelming.
‘Did you hurt your arm? I fell on the pavement this morning and hurt my arm. Look.’ The girl showed me a long, purple bruise.
‘Non, ma petite, I’m sad.’
‘Why are you sad?’
The angry bus strained up a hill.
‘I had to say goodbye to a friend.’
‘Does your friend like fire engines? My friend, Eli, likes fire engines. He lives next door. His mother is a baker and she always invited me into their kitchen. I love her apple pie. Do you like apple pie, mademoiselle?’
I looked down at the child who sat on the bus as if she was on her way to church. ‘Yes, I like apple pie very much.’
‘Well,’ said the girl, ‘when I asked Eli if he liked apple pie, he shrugged and said that he likes fire engines and that someday he’s going to be a fireman like his father.’
The voice of the child replaced the sounds of the grinding, shaking, rusting old bus, as she continued. ‘One day Eli was sad too, not because he said goodbye to a friend, but because he couldn’t be a fireman. We were eating apple pie in the kitchen and he said that he couldn’t be a fireman. When I asked him why not, he walked out of the room, and came back with his outside coat.’
The girl looked up at me and asked. ‘Mademoiselle, do you have an outside coat?’
I realized that the child must have been curious about my dishevelled appearance. My dress was dirty, my face was dirty. All I had was my torn dress, my shoes, and my journal.
‘Yes, petite, I left my coat at home. It’s being washed.’
‘Well, Eli came back into the kitchen with his outside coat and he showed me his yellow star. He called it David’s yellow star. His mother said that he had to wear it, and that she had sewed the star onto his coat. She said that Eli will be like a cowboy sheriff in America. Eli said that he didn’t want to be a sheriff; he wanted to be a fireman. He had tried to rip the yellow star off his outside coat, but his mother had forbidden him from doing it, Eli said. Then he and I ate our apple pie.’
The little girl’s legs dangled over the seat and didn’t reach the floor of the bus. Then she said quietly, ‘After that day I never saw Eli or his family again. Do you think he will be a cowboy sheriff in America?’