GRANDPA ENLISTED IN the Golani infantry brigade at the age of eighty. This was six months ago, a little after Grandma Miriam had suffered a stroke in the shower and died on the spot. A month and a half later, he packed a bag, stuffing it with four undershirts, five pairs of underwear, a flashlight, two cans of sardines, a biography of Moshe Sharett, and anti-chafing cream. He also added a sweater. Not because he thought he might be cold, but because he continued to fear the woman he had loved even after she had passed away. Then he canceled his subscription to the Lev Cinema, paid his debt to the butcher and called Frankel to tell him he was quitting the Friday morning gang, and they should invite Yoske Cohen to take his place.
Dad thought Grandpa had lost his marbles, told him that’s not how normal people cope. “Go on a cruise to the Caribbean or something,” he grumbled at him the night before the draft. “You don’t have to help death along.”
Grandpa said it was the other way ’round, that he was trying to outrun death, but Dad wouldn’t listen. He took a black notebook and pen out of his pocket, and started jotting down numbers. “Eighty-year-old soldier. One thousand ninety-five days in the military. A monthly salary of 893 shekels.” Then he mumbled to himself a series of convoluted formulas only he understood. Dad had worked his whole life as a life insurance actuary, or as he once explained to me, “someone who determines how much a person’s life is worth.” It wasn’t merely a profession to him. It was a worldview, almost a religion. Every component of his life was configured into charts and numbers. Alma always joked that he probably had an equation that determined the value of their love.
Dad finished scribbling in his illegible handwriting and looked at Grandpa. “According to the average life span, your hereditary background and health, you have another four years to live, maybe a little less,” he determined with stifling indifference. “Wasting those years cleaning toilets and on guard duty is simply flawed logic, there’s no other way to put it.”
Grandpa didn’t have the tools to counter his son’s complex formulas. He owned a grocery store, and even then Grandma Miriam was the one who handled the money. He tried explaining that many his age were reenlisting, that the situation down south was more precarious than ever, that someone had to defend this country instead of all those deadbeat dodgers crowding the cafés in Tel Aviv. He also said we had absolutely nothing to worry about. That he’d go to general boot camp like Yehuda from the doctor’s office and then pursue a desk job at the army headquarters.
“The paycheck isn’t too great, but even a few shekels is something. That way I can also help you out, Yermi,” Grandpa said, and immediately realized he’d gone too far.
“Obviously it’s just a suggestion,” he said, shifting into damage control. “You don’t have to …”
“I won’t take a single shekel from you,” Dad declared, shutting down any further discussion of the debts. “If Mom were alive, you wouldn’t dare enlist.”
“True,” Grandpa admitted. “But she isn’t.”
Dad left the room, and Grandpa went back to packing his bag. He tried zipping it up, but his hands were trembling and the bag fell off the bed, photos of Grandma Miriam scattering across the floor. I helped him put everything back into the bag only to see him empty it out onto the bed again a moment later.
He wouldn’t stop saying something was missing, but he didn’t know what.
alman1964@gmail.com
July 16, 2009, 04:45:02
Subject: Hi Yuli
How are you?
Get back to me when you read this.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
THE FOLLOWING DAY, on the way to the Reception and Sorting Base, Grandpa and I listened to Kol Yisrael. The broadcaster was interviewing some guy who had hiked the Israel National Trail with nothing but a hundred shekels in his pocket and two pairs of socks.
“I should add that to my list,” Grandpa said and cleared his throat.
“You know what I regret not having done?” he said when he realized I wasn’t going to ask.
“What?” I asked reluctantly, and he started listing the items slowly in a monotonous voice:
Hiking the Israel National Trail.
Eating Mom’s gefilte fish again.
Visiting the Arad Visitors’ Center.
Finding the old grocery store’s sign. Maybe in the Jaffa flea market.
Tracking down Tamar Weitzman, my first high school girlfriend who went to America and disappeared.
Smoking a Cuban cigar.
Telling Golda that on second thought, she wasn’t to blame for the war.
He fell silent, waiting for my reaction, but I continued to look out at the road quietly. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about the list again, which I already knew by heart, the list of all the things he never did and now never would do. Because my grandpa, ever since I could remember him, never stopped talking about the day he’d die. He let everyone know he’d be out of here in no time, and he also liked telling people exactly when and how it would happen, including a detailed arrangement of the eulogizers at his funeral. Grandma Miriam refused to listen. She always said that if he dared bring his death into their home, she’d kill him herself, either with a frying pan or a rolling pin, whichever was closer. So he kept quiet in her presence. But when I was a kid, whenever Grandpa took me to the movies on a Saturday morning, he would start up again. He said I was the only one he could trust, and I listened silently, letting him go on and on until I could recite by heart his last day on earth like I could the whole team of Hapoel Kfar Saba F.C., or entire dialogues from my favorite movie, Giv’at Halfon. Carrying the burden, keeping my grandpa alive.
A CORPORAL WITH round-rimmed glasses stood at the entrance of the reception base. “You’ve got your call-up papers?” he asked me. With a trembling hand, barely able to see a thing with his bucket hat covering half his face, Grandpa handed him his draft notice before I could get a word out. The soldier considered the draft slip and turned his gaze back to Grandpa. “No shit. You da man!” He slapped Grandpa’s shoulder. “It’s thanks to dudes like you that the people of Israel are still kicking ass. Yochai, come see this,” he yelled to a soldier next to him. “Another one joining the oldies. I’m telling you, these men are the real motherfuckers!”
Everyone around us started looking at Grandpa, who was awkwardly shrinking into himself. Then came a round of applause. I pulled him into the square inside the base and we sat down on a bench, waiting for his name to be called. I bought him a Diet Coke but he didn’t want to drink. He looked a little lost, as if in some state of pretrauma. An elderly man who had arrived with what seemed like his entire extended family stood beside us. Grandpa looked at the man’s children and grandchildren and wife, who was literally crying on his shoulder. I wanted him to stop looking at them, so I told him to check his bag to see that nothing was missing. He seemed happy that someone was giving him orders and promptly began rummaging through the bag, until finally he announced he had forgotten to pack a towel.
“Don’t worry, cozy up to the CSM and he’ll fix you up with a towel in no time.”
Grandpa nodded and then asked: “What’s a CSM?” I told him it was short for “company sergeant major,” to which he replied they had just called them “sarge” when he served in the science corps sixty years ago. After a moment he added, “I haven’t slept outside the house in years.”
“You can still change your mind. Just say the word, and we’ll drive back to Ramat Gan and have a falafel at the Georgian’s.”
He feigned a smile. Five minutes later, the name Zvi Neuerman flashed on the big electronic board. A soldier with a green beret appeared from within the crowd, picked up Grandpa’s bag, and requested that he follow him. Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder, turned around, and started walking toward the bus. He didn’t even say goodbye. He wasn’t fond of goodbyes and didn’t really know how to go about them. When the doctor at the hospital had told him to say a final goodbye to Grandma Miriam, he stared at her for a few minutes and said he was just popping out for a moment to buy a pretzel. He didn’t come back.
I followed him to the bus. He struggled up the stairs, lumbering slowly all the way to the back seat. I waved to him with both hands. He glanced at me, then quickly averted his gaze.
“They get old so fast, huh?” a woman standing next to me said. She had a high-pitched, slightly irritating voice, pretty curls, a blue dress, and black rubber boots.
“Totally,” I answered.
“What’s your excuse?” she asked. “Why did you make him enlist?”
“We didn’t make him, he wanted to.” On the bus, an elderly man sat by the window, obstructing my view of Grandpa.
“Why did he want to?”
“He said there were too many draft dodgers in Tel Aviv,” I said, wishing she’d just go away.
“You’re fucking with me,” she replied.
“Excuse me?” I looked at her. She was smirking, satisfied that she’d finally managed to catch my attention.
“Old men don’t sign up for the army because of draft dodgers in Tel Aviv.” She fished a pack of gum out of her bag and offered me a piece.
“I hate gum.”
The bus started crawling along, all the old fogies waving at their families. All except for my grandpa, who was hiding among them. The bus left the terminal and was instantly replaced by another one. I was beginning to feel hemmed in. Everyone was standing too close to one another. Too close to me.
“Say,” the woman started up again. Wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace. “Why did you guys even let him enlist? Got fed up taking care of him?”
“Are you one of those Checkpoint Watch women? What do you want from me?” I asked. My throat was dry. The air rebelled, refusing to enter my body.
“I’m from Checkpoint Watch and the Mizrahi Coalition Against the Conscription of the Elderly,” she said and snickered. “Just kidding, sweetheart, honestly. Why so serious? Just say you can’t be bothered to look after your grandfather. It’s fine, really. Between you and me, we’re all a bunch of assholes here.”
I took a deep breath.
“Hey, are you okay?” Her tone lost its sarcastic edge. “You look really pale.”
“I’m fine,” I answered with a stifled voice. “Just a touch of asthma.”
“You don’t have an inhaler?” she asked. I searched my pockets. It took me a few moments to realize I actually didn’t.
“I have to get out of here,” I announced, and started scurrying toward to the exit. She yelled something, but I couldn’t hear. I was already outside the reception base. The way to the parking lot was longer than I had remembered. I made it to my car and found a bottle of sun-scorched water lying on the back seat. I downed it in one gulp. Then I turned on the air conditioner to full blast. A soldier who was passing by knocked on my window, miming if everything was okay. I gestured yes and released the hand brake. I just wanted to get out of there. I rolled out of the parking lot and pulled over at the first bus stop. It was empty. It took me a few moments to catch my breath. Once I managed to pull myself together, I headed to the call center downtown. The shift manager, a guy who had been two grades below me in high school, said it would be the last time I showed up late without notifying him.
alman1964@gmail.com
July 17, 2009, 02:12:35
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
An Israeli traveler stopping by our office left behind a two-month-old copy of Yedioth Ahronoth. I have no idea why he had carried it around with him for so long. In any case, I saw Miriam’s name in the obituaries. I’m so sorry. She was a lovely woman. It’s true we didn’t always get along, but she really was a wonderful woman.
I hope you and your father are okay. Did you change your number? I called but it said the number was disconnected. Honestly, I’m not even sure this is the right email address.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
alman1964@gmail.com
July 17, 2009, 11:56:20
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
yuli.neuerman@gmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain gmail.com by gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com. [2607:f8b0:4001:c1b::1a].
The error that the other server returned was:
550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try
550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient’s email address for typos or
550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://
alman1964@gmail.com
July 17, 2009, 11:56:20
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Why didn’t it send??? I need to talk to you.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
alman1964@gmail.com
July 17, 2009, 12:16:34
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
yuli.neuerman@gmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain gmail.com by gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com. [2607:f8b0:4001:c1b::1a].
The error that the other server returned was:
550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try
550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient’s email address for typos or
550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://
GRANDPA CAME HOME for the weekend. When Dad and I went to visit him, we found him sitting alone on the roof. Stripped down to his underwear and white T-shirt, he had placed his black army boots near the entrance to the balcony and hung his uniforms on the clothesline. He held an IWI Tavor rifle in one hand and a cup of black coffee in the other.
“I see they were generous with the equipment,” I said to Grandpa, who turned his head to me, nodding contentedly. Dad pulled up a chair and sat down beside him silently.
“Well,” I asked, “how was it?”
“Grueling,” he replied. “Especially in the reception base. They’re worse than the Social Security office, believe me. Just filling out the forms at the sorting officer’s took me four hours.”
“What forms?” Dad asked, to which Grandpa smiled. “I assumed you’d want copies,” he said, taking out a few folded papers from his pocket. “Don’t worry, the sorting officer said it was routine protocol. To make sure you didn’t send me off to the army just because you didn’t feel like forking up the money for a retirement home.”
Dad skimmed through the forms. “Congrats, looks like you signed a terrific contract.”
“I actually didn’t even read it.”
“I can tell,” Dad said. “Just so you know, if you happen to be dying as we speak, or get Alzheimer’s, the army won’t have to pay you a single shekel. That’s one upstanding organization, your IDF,” he said to me, and sighed. Even two years after my discharge, to him I was still the commander in chief’s official representative. Dad unzipped his black fanny pack and fished out a few papers. “Like I thought,” he said, “we’re going to have to get private health insurance.” He handed Grandpa a pen and a few folded forms.
“Your son is tougher than the squad commanders at boot camp, huh?” I said to Grandpa, after which Dad shoved a few forms into my hand as well.
“What, I’m being drafted again too? Last time I checked I already served my stint in Golani,” I said.
“Employment and bank forms,” he explained. “I’m guessing you haven’t noticed that you’ve been working for two months without getting paid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your salary hasn’t been transferred to your bank account. You’ve been volunteering at the call center, which is nice of you, but not what I’d call financially sound. Go ahead, what do you care, it’s always good to fill out forms,” he said, and meant it. Dad was the one person in the world who liked bureaucracy. I don’t mean he learned to live with it. He liked bureaucracy the way he liked pistachio ice cream and organized tours of Kibbutz Kfar Blum. Something about the meticulous order, the unambiguous questions, soothed him. I filled everything out in a few seconds, but Grandpa took Dad’s rebuke to heart and carefully considered each and every sentence.
“Does this form also cover injuries sustained under operational circumstances?” Grandpa asked. “War, covert missions, etc.”
“I’m not sure a rusty stapler falls under the category of operational circumstances,” Dad said with a smile.
“What stapler?” Grandpa puzzled, turning his gaze to me. “Golani is no joke. You more than anyone should know!”
Dad and I laughed. Grandpa didn’t understand why.
“Who’d recruit you to Golani?”
“They already did. They’ve opened a new training course,” he replied, and went back to the forms.
“What are you talking about?” I asked him, hoping he’d give some reasonable explanation before Dad lost it. Grandpa told us that once he finished signing all the forms, the sorting officer patted him on the back and said that a man like him could make an even more significant contribution. That it wasn’t every day a veteran in such great shape reenlisted.
“And you’re telling me you said yes?” Dad asked.
“Of course. If I’m called upon to serve my country, who am I to say no? The nice fellow said I was born to be an infantryman. Even said I had the makings of an officer. Can you believe it, Yuli? We could both end up platoon commanders!”
“You’re actually talking to me about Bahad 1? Officers school??” Dad cut him off and shifted his gaze to me. “Could you please explain to me how senior citizens are enlisting to Golani and I’m the only one who thinks the world’s gone mad?”
Grandpa took a sip of his coffee. He tried to divert the conversation by mentioning there was some of Grandma Miriam’s soup left in the freezer, and that we were welcome to stay for dinner.
“Pea soup won’t help you here,” Dad said. His face flushed red. Truth be told, at that moment, I agreed with him. I was also starting to feel that this whole enlisting business had gone too far, but I didn’t want to leave Grandpa to fend for himself.
“It’s not as if they’re going to deploy him to Lebanon tomorrow,” I said, trying to calm things down. “They’ll probably set him up with a suitable position, it’s a special unit for people his age, isn’t it?”
Grandpa nodded.
“How exactly is enlisting to Golani suitable for an eighty-year-old man, in any scenario?”
“They know what they’re doing. I bet they adjusted the whole training course for them, I’m telling you. Old people are doing crazy things nowadays. Just yesterday I read about a ninety-year-old Japanese man who ran a full marathon. Compared to him, Grandpa’s still a baby.”
“You truly don’t grasp the difference between a marathon and boot camp?” Dad yelled. “The army isn’t supposed to provide employment for bored widowers. How could you, who fought a war, not understand that?”
“Because you, who served as a student-soldier in the Tel Aviv headquarters, do understand?” I barked at him. “What’s the big deal? So he’ll pull a little guard duty. It’s better than lying in bed all day waiting for a stroke.”
Grandpa coughed. I could see by his expression that he was trying to hide the insult; with a few brief sentences, we’d practically buried him alive.
“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but I’m going to enjoy a nice bowl of soup.” Grandpa got up, took a few steps toward the stairs, and stumbled on a loose tile. His cup almost fell, and the remainder of his coffee spilled over his white shirt, staining it with black, moist grains. Dad rushed toward him. He picked him up gently, cleaned his hands with a torn tissue he fished out of his pocket. Then he went downstairs to fetch a wet kitchen towel. I offered Grandpa to help him down the stairs.
“Don’t. At eighty, a man should start learning to manage by himself,” he announced and descended the entire staircase, only to come back up because he had forgotten his rifle on the roof.
alman1964@gmail.com
July 27, 2009, 03:52:48
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
You’re not getting my emails. I know. I got one of those automatic notices. But I’m going to keep writing you anyway. Okay? I can’t really explain it. I feel I need to, even if you won’t read it. Actually, maybe because you won’t read it. I know it’s silly. Trust me, I know, but since I saw Miriam’s obituary, I’ve been having all these thoughts but no one to share them with. It’s pathetic, I know, but what can I say, it’s the truth. Who am I going to tell? The Indians? The twenty-year-old backpackers? The Chabad rabbi who visits our offices every Monday and Thursday and still doesn’t understand how a mother can leave everything behind and move to India on her own?
So I’ll write you. Just a little. That’s my biggest flaw anyway, right? That I always put myself first. You said it yourself the last time we spoke on the phone. You said that the day I boarded the plane you realized I’d always put myself first. That you had always suspected it, but that my going to India proved it once and for all. Believe me, had I known that three months later you would stop answering my calls, I would never even have considered hanging up.
I tried calling you, as I’m sure you know. Five times this past week alone. You didn’t answer. Not assigning blame, just stating a fact. Surprisingly, your father did pick up. Actually, it’s not surprising at all. Pretending everything’s fine is practically his expertise. He told me Miriam fell in the shower. Strange, isn’t it? How a person can fall in the shower, and in a split second it’s all over. Just like that. He also told me your grandpa enlisted in that old people’s combat unit (is it actually called the geriatric platoon?? Has to be a joke.). Listen, I’m the last person who can criticize the country, but this sounds a bit wacky … What exactly are they going to do with them? Who are they going to fight? Hamas? Hezbollah? Your father didn’t explain. He never does. He wouldn’t talk about the debts either. I tried talking to him, believe me I tried. He probably doesn’t talk to you about it either. Or maybe he even told you it had been resolved. Sounds like him. What can I tell you, Yuli, I wish he’d confide in you, just a little. Not for your sake, but for his. Secrets rot the soul, it isn’t healthy to live like that.
This is so ridiculous. Writing to no one.
I’m going to stop now.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
GRANDPA DIDN’T COME home the following Friday, nor did he answer his phone. I made a few calls to people I knew from the army and finally reached a welfare NCO at the Golani training base. After looking into the matter, she told me that Grandpa had been granted a lone soldier status. Having informed them he couldn’t live alone, he was being housed at the Senior Citizens’ Center in Rehovot. According to the NCO, he said he was being neglected by his family, and she subtly inquired whether social services were involved.
I couldn’t believe he had lied like that. Badmouthed the only two people in the world who looked after him. The day Grandma Miriam died, I quit my job at the restaurant I’d been working at before the call center, and Dad took a month’s leave from work even though he couldn’t really afford it. And despite the fact that for the past thirty years he and Grandpa had only been pretending to talk to each other. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of Alma, or maybe there are other reasons. Actually, I’m not even sure they know, but it was hard not to notice the distance between them; how they always settled for a hesitant handshake, like businessmen in a useless meeting. Dad tried laughing it off, said it was just the way of Ashkenazi families, and left it at that.
I walked into Dad’s study. He was sitting at his desk in front of piles of papers. The moment I entered, he folded the letter he was reading. I couldn’t see what was written in it, but I spotted the logo of a law firm. I preferred not to ask.
“Listen, you were right,” I admitted, not without frustration, and told him everything. “I’m going to call his platoon commander right now and tell him they have to send Grandpa home.”
Dad opened one of the drawers and took out a pill sheet. “Headache,” he said and swallowed two pills without water. “You’re going to do no such thing.”
“Have you lost it? Any second now they’re going to charge us with abusing the elderly!”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Listen, I’ve talked to people in the brigade, you have no idea what he’s telling them about us.”
“I know,” he answered. “The NCO called me.”
“What?”
“Someone called me last night. Some soldier. She said Grandpa wants to move to one of those homes for elderly soldiers, but that they only accept soldiers who don’t have a supportive family.”
“Well, did you set things straight?”
“Yes. I told her we didn’t look after him at all.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Absolutely not,” Dad said. “I told them we’d be happy if the home could take him off our hands.”
“What? How could you even say something like that?”
“Easily. If he wants to move in with his friends, who am I to stop him?” he explained calmly, and I couldn’t understand how the most rational man I knew could actually think that way.
“You gave him hell when he wanted to enlist, and now it’s not driving you crazy that everyone thinks he’s some abused old man?”
“No. That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“The thing is, old people aren’t supposed to be protecting us …”
Dad fell silent. He noticed I was staring at a repossession notice that lay on his desk. He folded it in two and quickly shoved it back into the envelope.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“None of your business,” he answered adamantly. “As with Grandpa. Simply none of your business.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you explained to me what’s going on?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. He stacked a few papers into a neat pile, switched off the light, and walked out.
SATURDAY MORNING I went to see Grandpa. First, to tell him off, and second, to check that he was okay. The Senior Citizens’ Center in Rehovot wasn’t the miserable sight I’d expected. It was a three-story building with a large aquarium at the entrance. A few old people sat in black leather armchairs in the first-floor foyer, talking about shooting range practice. Other than the topic of conversation, the place pretty much resembled an old age home. The receptionist said that Zvi Neuerman was in room 306, third floor. The door was open. I walked in without knocking. Grandpa was sitting on the bed with two other old men, in the middle of a round of backgammon. He didn’t know how to play backgammon, but neither he nor the old man next to him seemed to mind.
“I’m glad to see they’re not neglecting you here,” I said to him. He smiled in reply, deliberately ignoring my sarcastic tone.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in! Lovely to see you,” Grandpa said. He was wearing fatigues and a T-shirt, and a dog tag with his name on it around his neck. “Meet Nathaniel Shapiro, fellow platoon member, and Yossi Buzaglo, history NCO in the education corps,” he said, pointing at his friends.
“Who’s this youngin’?” Shapiro asked. Grandpa laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
“You heard I got top marks on my CPR test?”
“You’re being serious? You’re talking to me about some CPR test? Where did you get the nerve to tell that welfare NCO that we’re—”
“The only one in the whole platoon, ain’t that something?” he cut me off, and started rhapsodizing about the AN/PRC 77 Radio Set training and target practice. Grandpa said he got a little nervous at first but then started to enjoy himself, and that even Waxman, the platoon commander, had praised his steady grip.
“Is 4cm grouping considered good?” he asked.
“That’s not the issue,” I growled. “I can’t believe you said—”
“So it’s not good,” he said, lowering his gaze.
“It just has nothing to do with it. And 4cm is great for your first target practice. But listen, what you told them doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No, seriously, for your first try it’s great. Really.”
“Hear that, Buzaglo? My grandson here was in Golani, and he says it’s a great score! Ain’t that something?”
I gave up. I realized I wasn’t going to get through to him.
“Neuerman, stop being such a newbie,” Shapiro said, standing by the door. “And quit wearing your weapon like that, strapped across your chest. No one does that.”
Grandpa got upset and announced there was no such thing as too cautious when it came to safety, at which Shapiro smiled and said he was just gung-ho because he was dying to be admitted to the squad commanders’ course.
Afterward, Grandpa quietly asked me what “gung-ho” meant and whether it was good or bad.
I lied and said it depended on how you looked at it.
Grandpa stared at a photo of Grandma Miriam that lay on his bedside table. It had been taken during their trip to Niagara Falls six years earlier. Grandma was cocooned in a red raincoat, her face barely visible. The white sheets on Grandpa’s bed boasted the logo of the Association for the Elderly, and hanging on the wall above it was a frayed poster of Barbra Streisand.
“Buzaglo heard I like her so he set me up with the poster.”
I told him it looked like a real warrior’s bed, and he gave a satisfied smile. He glanced at Grandma’s photo again. “If she could only see me now,” he said. “She would never have believed it.”
He suggested I stay a bit longer and join them for lunch in the dining hall, announcing proudly that it was goulash day, but I told him I had to get going. He thanked me for coming and hugged me so tightly that for a moment I felt bad for rushing to leave. Grandpa went back to his backgammon game and tossed the dice.
“Oooh, a triple win! You bastard,” Shapiro said. Grandpa had no idea what a triple win meant, but he couldn’t stop smiling.
alman1964@gmail.com
August 8, 2009, 01:31:24
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Once a month, Yuli. I promise not to write more than one email a month, but I can’t not write you at all. I’ve tried. I even bought a journal. One of those fancy ones with a brown cover. I wrote you there a few times, but it just doesn’t do the trick. This whole thing is moronic, I know. Believe me, I know. After all, what’s the difference, right? It’s not as if these emails are actually reaching you. It’s like writing to a brick wall, but what can I do. The journal didn’t provide any solace, while an email that doesn’t even reach its recipient does. And I’ve already decided that wherever I manage to find solace, I won’t go looking for the reason. So I’m going to keep writing you. Only once a month. No more than that. Okay, Yuli? Oh, how I love that name. You know I have a calendar in my office that I keep open to the month of July? I keep thinking to myself how lucky I am that your father insisted on naming you Yuli and not Nadav, like I wanted. Just imagine, I’d be stuck in this stinking office in Delhi without anything to remind me of you. The thought alone is unbearable.
You know, I had planned on hanging up in the middle of our conversation. This isn’t easy to admit even to myself, but my hanging up—right after you told me I’d always put myself first—was planned. It’s hard to explain, but from the day I decided to divorce your father, I knew that conversation was coming. I had played it out in my head thousands of times. How you were going to yell at me, vent your anger. It scared me so much I even rehearsed the scene in front of the mirror, tried to figure out how I’d answer. What I could say to mollify you. Like when you were little, remember? When Dad broke your Game Boy and you threw a tantrum, and I hugged you so tightly and said I wouldn’t stop until I popped you like a balloon and deflated all the anger? And you started to laugh.
Every parent who gets divorced eats themselves up about it, scared they messed up their kids’ lives. But a mom who gives up custody like that, without putting up a fight? And not only that, but leaves her ex all alone with debts that are basically her fault? I cannot begin to describe the amount of self-hatred I had to deal with, Yuli. I really can’t. And trust me, I know perfectly well I’m the last person who deserves pity in this whole story. I keep hearing Miriam’s voice in my head, reminding me of that. I don’t want to speak evil of her, she was still your grandmother. Let’s just say she couldn’t stand me from the moment we met. And I can’t blame her, you know? She was right all along. What business did a thirty-year-old actuary have with an eighteen-year-old soldier? A man so cautious he never even jaywalked. She couldn’t understand how her son came back one day from reserve duty at the army headquarters with an orphaned clerk. A girl from a kibbutz without a shekel to her name. What can I tell you, Yuli? I understand her. It was an odd choice. But your father was an odd man. I knew that from the moment I saw him. A guy walking around with a fanny pack and a calculator in his shirt pocket because he never knew when he might need it, cannot be described as normal.
But neither could I. That’s why we were such a good match. How does that Yehuda Amichai poem go? People use each other. And we definitely used each other. With our hands. Mouths. Eyes. With our loneliness. We were one of those couples people see on the street and feel a little sorry for, because you can tell neither of them is much of a catch. Everybody is so sure love is two people who chose to be together. But I always knew it was the other way around. It’s when two people feel that this is their one and only chance at love, so they hold on tightly and don’t let go. Hold on to each other until their knuckles are white. Because they know that in this world there’s only one person they’ll get the chance to love, so they better not screw it up.
You know when I realized your dad and I were one of those couples? The day he took me to Shalom Meir Tower. That weekend you left for your first summer camp with the scouts. Remember? Your dad wouldn’t explain why he was dragging me on a Friday night to the eighteenth floor of a closed office building. Would you believe that your dad, that dork, would do such a thing? I remember he opened the door and I thought he had gone mad. I was sure he had actually broken into the place! He pulled me into the most beautiful room in the office, a giant room overlooking Jaffa, with a gorgeous parquet floor. He stood me in front of the window and announced: “We’re going for it.” And before I even realized what he was talking about, that klutz tried to kiss me but tripped and took me down with him. It was only in the hospital, when they put a cast on my leg, that he whispered in my ear that he had rented the place. The entire office. And that very morning had quit his job at the insurance agency. And that he and I were going to set up the travel agency I had always dreamed of.
Believe me, I thought he was crazy. I’m not joking, Yuli. I told him it was hardly the right time to talk about it, that it was simply nonsense. And right then and there in front of the nurse, I started yelling at him that we’d need to take out a second mortgage to rent an office like that, and that he didn’t even know anything about international travel, that I myself had barely been in the industry for four years. And that we needed to save money, like adults, so you could go to college like everyone else. And while I was busy yelling at him, your father put his finger on my lips and said that worst case scenario we’d fall on each other’s asses, which we had already proven we were pretty good at.
Oh, what can I tell you, Yuli? It was the kitschiest, most romantic thing an utterly unromantic man had ever said to me (you know that on our very first date he declared he wouldn’t be celebrating any anniversaries? Said he found them a waste of time and money). And at that moment I realized the lengths he’d go for me. I also realized that what we had between us wasn’t exactly love but something even stronger, something miserable but at the same time more binding, which I can’t even attempt to define.
But why am I telling you all this, Yuli? Parents aren’t supposed to share romantic anecdotes with their children. And besides, unlike us, you turned out to be beautiful. You can choose any woman you want.
Good thing these words aren’t reaching anyone.
I hope I’ll be able to wait another month, Yuli. I sincerely hope.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
I SAW GRANDPA changing before my eyes with every visit to the Senior Citizens’ Center. His potbelly gradually shrank and his back slightly straightened. He claimed that years of Grandma Miriam’s gefilte fish and tzimmes had turned him into a real warrior, he just hadn’t known it at the time. While most soldiers in his platoon enjoyed a variety of exemptions (like Moshe Levy, who didn’t have to pull guard duty for more than an hour at a stretch, or Alex Lieberman, stationed within three hundred meters from a bathroom), Grandpa finished his first foot drill without requiring any sick leave the following day. Even the hazings by the young commanders didn’t bother him. When they assigned him the worst guard duty shifts, late at night, or sent him to fetch “electricity powder” from the company supply room, he did it with a smile. He had even stopped talking about his death, the elaborate morbidities now replaced by anecdotes about Company Commander Waxman’s operational experience, and the surprise of smoked tuna during urban warfare week. Which made me understand that maybe you’re never too old to turn over a new leaf.
Not once did Dad ask me to tell him about Grandpa, but when I did anyway, he listened attentively; he let out a small smile when he heard they picked Grandpa to be the signaler on the company march, and couldn’t suppress his anger when I told him they took away Grandpa’s Shabbat leave because he didn’t shave. And he even came to the induction ceremony, at which Grandpa took his oath; showed up with a white wide-brimmed hat and a pair of Alma’s old sunglasses and videotaped the whole thing, his hand trembling when Grandpa received his Golani badge. Grandpa himself didn’t seem too excited when he placed his hand on the Bible and pledged allegiance to the State of Israel. It was only on the way home, when we stopped for a falafel from Georgian’s, that Grandpa told me he was tired because he couldn’t fall asleep last night.
“Well, it makes sense, the induction is a pretty exciting thing,” I told him, to which he announced it had nothing to do with that. “Today’s our anniversary,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.
THE FIRST TIME I heard Grandpa swearing was when he called to tell me they were being sent to secure one of the settlements in the Valley, near the Jordanian border. They were just going to sit there, without even doing patrol duty. To me it was obvious they’d be assigned to one of those meaningless missions, that no one actually expected them to do anything serious. But Grandpa was shocked, didn’t see it coming. He dismissed Waxman’s explanations about how they didn’t have enough experience for an active mission on the Gaza front line, that in any case half the platoon had hearing aids so they couldn’t be anywhere near whistling mortar bombs. He told me over the phone that his entire platoon was a bunch of cowards that wanted nothing more than to go home to their Filipino caregivers on the weekends, and that tomorrow he was going to get his release form signed, leave the Geriatric Platoon and join a unit with real combat soldiers. Said he’d give anything to go down to Gaza and bump a terrorist or two, show that goddamn army what he was worth.
“Believe me when I say you have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told him.
“I know perfectly well what I’m talking about, and don’t you treat me like a child.”
“But you sound like one,” I replied. “You think the army is a game?”
“You think you can teach me something because you fought in Lebanon?” Grandpa said. “Because you saw a few bullets fly past your head? I was here in ’48, I know more about war than you ever will,” he announced, and hung up.
I tried calling him back twice but he wouldn’t pick up. That night, Dad told me he had called him. Grandpa said they were already in Ro’i, a small moshav on the Jordanian border, a two-hour drive from anywhere that mattered. That they had unloaded their equipment and he had already been dispatched to guard duty, when he got caught reading Moshe Shamir’s He Walked Through the Fields, and Waxman took away his Shabbat leave once again.
“We’ve got no choice,” Dad said. “We’re going to have to visit the wayward soldier.”
From that point on, Dad was completely consumed with the preparations around the trip. He had bought three cookbooks, and each night I’d come home to find him at the stove. He used to cook quite often, but ever since Alma had left, Dad tried to avoid spending time in the kitchen, which remained Alma’s territory even after she was gone. He’d have lunch in a restaurant or café, and at night grab a yogurt from the fridge or a few almonds from the pantry, quickly darting out of the kitchen for any other room.
Spending such long stretches of time in the spot that had once been hers made Dad start talking about her again. Not explicitly, but with offhand remarks that brought her back into the house (“Did you know we bought this blender in France?” “She never liked garlic sauce.” “I still have to fix her coffeemaker.”).
During that entire week, when I came home from work, he’d ask me to taste his daily concoction and rate it from one to ten. The spicy chraime fish got a five, the honey-glazed chicken a six, and the pasta with mushroom sauce a three. I suggested we just bring him takeout from a nice restaurant, explaining that it was commonly done nowadays, but Dad took offense and continued cooking. I’m not sure what he based his final decision on, but we ended up making our way to the outpost with two pots of Vietnamese chicken mixed with caramelized rice and stuffed grape leaves. The original recipe had called for Swiss chard, but neither of us knew exactly what that was. Dad drove and I held the pots tightly on my lap, having wrapped them first in plaid kitchen towels like he had asked me to. Every now and then, when we hit a red light, Dad lifted one of the lids and inhaled the fragrant steam with the earnestness of a child taking in the scent of the ocean.
alman1964@gmail.com
September 19, 2009, 01:54:09
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
I visited the Taj Mahal yesterday. Can you believe I’ve been here three years and only yesterday saw it for the first time? So why didn’t I visit it before, you ask (not really)? I’m not sure. After all, planning trips to India was my favorite thing to do when I was a travel agent, and almost everyone who visits makes a beeline for the Taj. I knew everything there is to know about that place. And I mean everything. From the phone number of the best taxi driver in Agra to how to get into the compound for the local price. And suddenly yesterday, two Israelis walked into my office, mistaking it for a Chabad house. David and Tamar, a retired couple, incredibly sweet people. They only wanted to ask if I knew a decent restaurant in the area, and ended up staying for two hours. What did we talk about, you ask (but not really)? What didn’t we talk about! How best to get around India, my three years here, David’s service in the air force (he was a pilot!). At some point he mentioned they were both from Kibbutz Be’eri, and they were so delighted to hear that I was originally from Kibbutz Nahal Oz that they invited me to come with them to the Taj Mahal. At first I turned their invitation down, thinking they were just being polite, but then Tamar said there was no point arguing because they wouldn’t take no for an answer. And that they’d pick me up at 7:00 A.M. I can’t explain it, Yuli, but something about her tone, and that adamant hand gesture, suddenly reminded me of my mother. And I said yes, without even thinking. The kind of yes that leaves no room for a change of heart. They picked me up the following day (yesterday), and four hours later we were standing in front of the Taj Mahal. And the funniest thing is that I ended up giving them a three-hour tour, even though I’d never been there before! Crazy, huh? It was all from memory!
On our way back, I saw in the rearview mirror that David was holding Tamar’s hand. They asked me if I’d always dreamed about living abroad, and I don’t know exactly why, but I found myself telling them about the fourth day of the Yom Kippur War, after they had told me my father was killed. How I ran up and down the entire kibbutz yelling that I was going to get away from this stinking country the first opportunity I got and move to Scandinavia. That in Scandinavia people didn’t die because the cold kept them safe like an icebox. Which is odd, Yuli, because I hadn’t thought about that day in years. I had completely forgotten about it. Forgotten all my promises. Because kids make a lot of promises that they don’t make good on. But during that ride from Agra to Delhi, all those memories suddenly resurfaced. And as I’m writing you this, I’m realizing that maybe my trip to India really did begin there, the day my father got killed. And that maybe, when I think about it, India is the closest I’ve ever been to a teenage rebellion. Because I never actually rebelled, you know? By the time I was ready to rebel against someone, both my parents were already dead. My rebellions were unsuccessful and short-lived. The day after I rebelled against the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv, I became a soldier; and a moment after I decided to rebel against the army, I met your father. Three weeks after my discharge I was already his wife, and nine months later, your mother. And once I became a mother, I knew my chance to rebel against the world was over. Because mothers aren’t allowed to rebel, right? At least that’s what I used to think. Today I’m not so sure anymore. Maybe because we tend to do things backward in our family. Look at your grandfather. He’s finally free of Miriam, and he goes and enlists in the army. And you, such a golden child, for the past two years you’re suddenly stuck with no direction in life. Actually, there’s only one person I know who’ll never rebel, and that’s your father. Because unlike people like us, who are a bit weaker, he’s always there. He’d never run off to India or enlist in Golani. I bet psychologists would say he’s coping with the situation better than all of us, but I think that’s bullshit. It’s not healthy for a person to just resign himself to the role the world has fated him with.
I wanted to write you the moment I came back from the Taj. Because I needed to share all this with someone before I forgot. But you know, Yuli, now, writing about my trip to Agra, everything feels a bit strange. Not that you’re actually receiving these emails, and yet, it feels like you are supposed to be the one writing them. As if we have somehow traded places. As if I stole your trip. Which is silly, I know, but sometimes it feels as if there was only one seat left on that plane to India, and I stole it from you.
I hope that thought never crossed your mind. I really do.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
AT THE ENTRANCE to the Ro’i settlement, we saw Shapiro next to the security booth in a bulletproof vest and a dinky old helmet. He was sitting on a white plastic chair, his eyes closed, basking in the last moments of shade. I honked at him. He almost fell off his chair. Then he yawned, stretched and got up (not without considerable effort), shuffled toward the car and stuck his head through the window.
“You guys are allowed to sit during guard duty?” I asked.
“What do you think? Almost everyone in the platoon has an exemption from standing,” he replied with a smile.
“So shouldn’t you at least … like, be awake?”
He took a crinkled piece of paper out of his pocket. “Authorization to nap,” he said, waving it proudly. “Ten minutes every hour. I’m the only one in the whole platoon who has it!”
“What are you reading?” he asked and pointed at the book resting on the back seat.
“The Myth of Sisyphus,” I replied. “Albert Camus.”
“God, awfully boring, that one. Only a French fatty can turn a story worth a sentence and a half into a whole book.”
Shapiro informed us that Grandpa had just finished guard duty on the tower, opened the gate, and suggested we wait for him in the parking spot in front of the administrative office. He glanced at the pots and added, “You should know you’ve got some serious competition. My granddaughter brought over some of her delicacies.”
Right after Dad parked the car, we heard a shout.
“Gourevitch!” a man hollered. “If you’re not here in thirty seconds I’m shooting you myself.”
I recognized Grandpa’s voice immediately.
The tower wasn’t a watchtower, but a water tower with “Let IDF kick ass and bust heads!” sprayed across its tank in black graffiti, next to “Eitan Tayeb is innocent!”
When I got there, Gourevitch was just climbing up the stairs with his bulletproof vest in his hand. He almost slipped off every stair, and Grandpa kept yelling at him from above that he had better move his ass if he didn’t want to end up like Kastner. Once Gourevitch made it all the way up, almost unconscious from the effort, Grandpa nimbly bounded down the stairs. He hugged me and said that Gourevitch was such a newbie.
We sat down on the grass near the parking lot, under the shade of a tree. Grandpa removed the rifle strapped across his chest and gave Dad a slap on the back. “What happened that you decided to cook?” he asked, to which Dad quickly replied, “What happened that you decided to enlist?”
They both smiled. Producing a black pepper mill and a bottle of chili powder, Dad said the recipe called for seasoning right before serving. He ladled a spoonful of the dish into a blue plastic bowl he had bought especially for the occasion.
“What’s this?” Grandpa asked.
“Vietnamese Chicken,” I replied.
He sniffed it. “Say, they eat their chicken cold in Vietnam?”
“We didn’t think that one through,” I replied, and Dad lowered his gaze.
“Don’t worry,” Grandpa quickly blurted, “believe me, I’m so hungry I wouldn’t know the difference, but why don’t you serve the kid first, he still has some growing up to do.”
I took a bite and immediately knew the chili’s punch was more than Grandpa’s palate could bear. But before I could warn him, he had shoveled a forkful into his mouth. He could barely chew. His face contorted and his grip tightened around his weapon from the exertion of swallowing. At the end of the brief skirmish between Grandpa and the Far East, Grandpa came out on top, but just barely.
“Hey, this isn’t half bad,” he said, nearly gagging.
Dad quickly tasted the dish. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled, “it was supposed to be sweet.”
“It’s a real delicacy,” Grandpa insisted. “Here, I’ll take another bite just to prove it to you.” His face a bright red, Grandpa looked so miserable that the offer alone had made Dad burst into laughter, and Grandpa let out a sigh of relief once he realized he wouldn’t have to face the challenge again. They agreed that next time Dad would bring falafel from the Georgian, and all I could think about was how fragile the moment was.
“I have to admit you let us down a little,” Dad said, and Grandpa raised a baffled eyebrow. “I was sure you’d be hating every moment here. That we’d find you halfway to defecting to the Jordanian army.”
Grandpa shrugged and said he’d rather be serving in the special forces unit, but he decided to give his platoon another chance. “Most of the men here are deadbeats, but a few aren’t too bad.”
On our way back to the car we saw Shapiro and a few other elderlies from the platoon sitting on a bench. Grandpa introduced them to us with such pride, it was easy to forget that only a few days ago he had expressed a sincere willingness to smash their heads in with the butt of his rifle.
“You should know your grandpa is a real warrior,” one of them told me, pointing his walking stick at him. “God have mercy on the poor terrorist who comes up against him.”
“Come on, guys, that’s enough,” Grandpa said, but I could see on his face how much he wanted them to continue. To carry on with the same admiring tone that highlighted the difference between them, and made it clear he stood apart.
“I have a granddaughter here to show off too,” Shapiro mentioned proudly, and pointed at a girl in a turquoise sweater. She looked familiar, but her black sunglasses made it difficult to say from where.
“Avigail, meet Yuli.”
“We’ve already met once,” Avigail said.
“Really?” Shapiro asked.
I said “No” and she said “Yes” the exact same moment.
“Don’t try to deny it,” she said. That cheeky smile. It was the girl I had met at the Reception and Sorting Base.
“Okay, I don’t want to know,” Shapiro said and then turned to Grandpa. “If they end up getting married, you’re paying for the wedding hall.”
Grandpa smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll see about that. My grandson is one hell of a catch.” Then he added in a serious tone, “Did you know kiddo here fought in the Second Lebanon War?”
Their smiles turned into curious glances.
“Really?” Shapiro asked. “What brigade?”
“Golani,” I replied.
“An elite unit! Egoz,” Grandpa added.
Admiring gazes were showered upon me. One of them even started clapping. “So you were in the Battle of Bint Jbeil? With Roi Klein, rest in peace?” one of them asked.
“No.”
“So where were you?”
“Maroun al-Ras.”
“What did you do there?”
“We fought.”
“And kicked some Hezbollah ass?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why are you so blasé about it?” Avigail asked.
“Because it’s not such a big deal,” I replied.
“Or maybe because it fucked you up a little,” she said.
For a while, no one said a word.
“Say, how come I didn’t know all this?” Grandpa wondered, pleased with the attention I was getting from his platoonmates. “Guys, I propose my grandson share some battle stories. Yuli, tell us exactly what happened over there. We could use a few tips from a real pro.”
“We have to get going,” Dad cut him off, and started pushing me toward the car. “I still have to go over a few reports today.”
“Wait a minute, Yermi,” Grandpa said, trying to catch my hand. “Give us a few more minutes with the kid. They all want to hear what he has to say.”
“Some other time,” Dad announced in a tone that left little room for negotiation. “We have to go,” he said, and Grandpa had no choice but to accept it with the same nervous silence that hung between me and Dad the entire way home.
“It’s been a long time since you talked about what happened over there,” Dad said as he parked the car near our house. “I think you should reconsider therapy or something.” He was struggling to get the words out. “You should see someone,” he continued. “The things you went through in Lebanon. It isn’t normal.”
“I’m not the only one who went through it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s normal,” he replied. “You talk about it like you saw it in a movie, like it wasn’t even you there.”
“I get that you’re worried, but everything’s okay, really.”
“What are you talking about, Yuli?” he said with what sounded like anger that had been accumulating for some time. “You’ve been stuck for the past two years, Yuli. Two years. You can’t keep wasting your life.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re better than that.”
“Maybe I’m not,” I said.
It pained him to hear it like that, unfiltered. He was still sure it was just a phase. That soon I’d get my act together and enroll at Harvard or something, like I had promised him long ago.
We were both quiet, I’m not sure for how long.
“The pill you saw me take …,” he said hesitantly, lingering on every syllable. “Those aren’t for headaches. Since your mother left, with everything that’s been going on with the debts, with your grandpa … It hasn’t been easy. I mean, I’m trying to take care of it, but it’s not easy,” he said with a sigh. “It helps me. You understand? That’s why I said what I said. Maybe, just maybe, you should at least consider treatment.”
He waited a little until he realized I wasn’t going to respond.
“We’re too much alike,” he said, and got out of the car, leaving me alone with the cold pot.
alman1964@gmail.com
October 26, 2009, 04:32:58
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Come on, Yuli. Why don’t you pack a bag and fly to South America or Lapland or wherever you feel like going? To disprove everything I wrote in my last email. What’s stopping you, my child? I really don’t think you understand how much the thought troubles me. So much so that I’ve even made up a theory to try to explain it. I’m serious. It’s been on my mind for a long time. I call it the spots theory. It seems to me that every person has one spot in the world he’s connected to. It sounds obvious, I know. After all, everyone has a country and city they’re connected to. But I’m starting to think it isn’t the country that keeps us rooted. Nor our education, friends, or family. It’s something a lot more specific, much more precise. A spot in the world that pulls us in like a magnet. Your dad is a good example. His spot was the office. Fifteen years he worked his ass off there, and in that tiny spot, a square meter of an office, he was happier than I’ll ever be able to understand. Today I can’t believe how arrogant I had been, but back then I truly didn’t believe a person could be happy calculating formulas all day, and that even if he believed he was happy—he was just fooling himself. That’s why I wanted him to help me set up the travel agency. True, it was my dream and not his, but I wasn’t going to let the facts get in my way. What can I tell you, Yuli? I was a well-intentioned idiot. Your grandpa’s spot is obvious. His roof in Ramat Gan. I remember how he used to change whenever we went up there. I mean it. Watch him the next time he walks up the stairs to the roof. You’ll see how something in his soul is set free. How he walks differently, talks differently. As if the roof is his escape from reality. I can’t explain exactly what comes over him there, but with your grandpa you can really see what a good spot can do for a person.
Are you starting to understand what I’m talking about? I doubt it. Not only because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but also because neither of us has spots. I mean, I assume we do, but we just haven’t found them yet. I honestly can’t say where your spot is, but I’m sure it’s in Israel. Maybe it’s right under your nose. Maybe even somewhere in our house. Because that would explain everything, you know? Why you’re so stuck in place. Remember you once told me about dark energy? You told me scientists are now saying 70 percent of the universe is comprised of something completely unknown. And that something affects our every movement in space, and we can’t even explain how. And I didn’t understand a single word you were saying, I never do when you talk about those things, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since. That there’s a hidden force affecting our lives. And the spots are exactly the same. Pushing and pulling us while we delude ourselves into believing we have complete control over our lives. But it’s all just make-believe. Even moving to India didn’t change anything. I’m still spending my days in an office, still stuck, just on a different continent.
You’re a little stuck too, huh? More like a lot stuck. I’ve heard from your father that the subject of university is not to be broached. And that your friends have all moved on with their lives and that you’ve fallen out of touch with them (don’t be mad, he didn’t want to rat you out, he only told me after I yelled at him that you were my son too). I’m trying not to ask myself how much of this is my fault. Clearly I’m guilty, it’s just a question of how much. I’m sure the war is also to blame. Yes, the war. The one we haven’t talked about. You know I’ve been bracing myself for this question for two years now? How could I not come? How could I not board the first flight to Israel the moment it all began? For two years I’ve been rehearsing the lousy answer I’d give you. But you never asked. I remember when we talked on the phone after you got back, and you said there’s nothing to tell, and I kept insisting, but you said there was no point because I could never understand Lebanon, and I felt as if we were back in your high school days, after your dad and I divorced. When you would come over to my place once every two weeks and not say so much as a word. And I so wanted you to talk to me. That’s why I was thrilled when your teacher called to tell me you wrote that civics paper about the Spartan approach. Brilliant as always, but also a little troubling; she suggested we talk to you, make sure everything was okay, and I instantly knew that phone call was a chance to peek into your world. I knew you wouldn’t show me the paper if I came out and asked for it, so I went into your room and searched every drawer until I found it. You’re probably still angry about that, but try to understand me. You wouldn’t talk to me back then. You never really talked to me. Neither before the war, nor after. You wouldn’t say anything other than “it was fine,” as if it was just another boring day at school. How I yearned to get another phone call like the one I got from your teacher, for someone to give me a clue into what was going on in that head of yours. But no commander called. And whenever we spoke I kept begging you to share your feelings with me, to share anything. And I told you it was true I might not be so great at it, but I was still your mother. Oh, my Yuli, remember what you said? I’m sure you don’t. It came out so naturally I don’t think you even noticed. But I’ll never forget it. Believe me.
“I guess not every woman is meant to be a mother.” That’s what you said. With some kind of excruciatingly sober rationality you must have gotten from your dad, not from me. My heart went up in flames, Yuli. Burned to dust. But I didn’t say a word. And we’ve never discussed those words. As if they never even left your mouth. But they continued to gnaw at me. I think it was after that conversation that you started calling me Alma. I mean, every now and then you would do that, that’s why I didn’t notice at first, but with time I realized the word Mom had completely disappeared from your vocabulary. To this day I don’t know if it was a conscious decision you made or something that just happened on its own. It’s a paradox, you know? Because if we were a little closer I’d work up the nerve to ask you about it, but if we were a little closer, you’d probably still be calling me Mom. Right?
So much is missing between us, Yuli.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
AT 6:00 A.M. the following day, I got a phone call from Shapiro. He said Grandpa had been admitted to HaEmek hospital, that he couldn’t talk about it over the phone and would explain everything once I got there. I leaped out of bed, left a note for Dad, and sped up north. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. How could he be in the hospital? Just yesterday he had looked like a Chuck Norris action figure. Hospitalization? He must be unconscious. Grandpa would never willingly set foot in a hospital. Even when Grandma Miriam was diagnosed with pneumonia and was admitted for three days, he refused to visit. He claimed they made those places so miserable on purpose, so that people would start thinking death wasn’t the worst option, and he had no intention of falling for that ruse.
Dad called as I drove past Hadera. “I didn’t understand your note. Where are you going this early?”
“Grandpa is in the hospital,” I replied.
“Your grandpa? Who managed to pull that off?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“I see,” he said, and fell silent.
“I hope it’s nothing serious,” I said.
“Yes. Yes. So do I. Okay, keep me updated.”
“I will.”
“Good, so we’ll talk later. I have to go over a case file.”
“What case file?” I asked.
“Since when do you care?” Dad scoffed.
“I don’t,” I replied. “But I have a long drive ahead of me.”
He said it was an interesting case. Some guy who had taken out a three-million-dollar life insurance policy and killed himself less than an hour after signing the paperwork.
“What you call a man with a plan …”
“Yes,” Dad said, “only his family won’t be getting the money. There are laws against such cases, so people won’t start jumping off roofs whenever they’re a few shekels short. That’s why I always say how important it is to read the …”
“Fine print,” I completed his sentence.
“Speaking of fine print, you have to sort out your bank account forms. How many times do I have to tell you that it’s money going down the drain?”
“I already did,” I replied.
“What? When?”
“Last night, after we got back from the Valley.”
“How? Online?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, good.”
I was waiting for more, but he said he had to hang up.
They had put him in the medical corps ward, room 213. He was lying in the bed closest to the window, his head slouching to the left and his right hand slumped across the bedrail. His eyes were closed. Shapiro sat to his left, his leg in bandages; he tried scratching it with the butt of his rifle, without much success. I put my hand on Grandpa’s shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. He didn’t wake up.
“Don’t worry, your old man’s fine,” Shapiro immediately said. “A little neck pain from the fall, probably nothing serious. Trust me, they only brought him in because he’s an old fart.”
“How the hell did you guys end up in the hospital?”
“Operational activity,” Shapiro announced.
“Please, who are you kidding?” I said in a huff. “What’s this operational activity nonsense? I saw you guys yesterday, no one said a word about operational activity.”
“Of course no one said a word,” Shapiro said, waving dismissively. “We’re talking covert mission. Your grandpa explicitly forbade us from disclosing any details.”
“My grandfather forbade you? What the fuck? You guys are commandos now? Who exactly would send you on a covert mission?”
“No one. Your grandfather decided we should send ourselves.”
Oh god, what had he talked them into? I considered Grandpa again, lying there in his field pants and an undershirt reeking of sweat, patches of white stubble on his cheek.
“He wouldn’t put on the hospital gown,” Shapiro said. I straightened the pillow behind Grandpa’s neck, then sat back down on my chair and looked at Shapiro. “Okay, tell me what mess he has gotten the two of you into, and don’t give me any bullshit about how you’re not allowed to talk about it.”
He looked at Grandpa, closed his eyes, opened them and turned his gaze back to me. “He’d been planning it for the past two weeks,” he said, sighing. Grandpa had pulled him aside in the dining hall for a discreet conversation, saying he couldn’t understand why they weren’t sending them on real missions, arguing that even scarecrows could secure a sleepy settlement in the Valley. “I tried calming him down, but he announced it was time we thought outside the box, just like Ariel Sharon when he established Unit 101. To show the top dogs what we’re worth.”
They set off on their mission last night. Yossi Gourevitch and Alex Lieberman, the platoon driver, showed up too. They took the quartermaster’s Renault Kangoo and patrolled the area, wanting to show everyone they shouldn’t be messed with.
“Within three hours we had already canvassed the area twice, like champs,” Shapiro said. “Even your grandpa was proud of us. But the moment we started heading back, he noticed someone running behind us.”
“What? Who?”
“A very suspicious man!” Shapiro exclaimed. “Your grandpa tried to get out of the car, but he was so nervous his hands shook, so it took him a few moments to get out. He finally managed, but the thing is, Gourevitch, that useless bugger, also fumbled. Hit my knee with his weapon and tripped right over your grandpa.”
He said that by the time the three of them had gotten back on their feet, the man was already two hundred meters ahead of them, and kept running. “Your grandpa was so upset he tossed his weapon to the ground and started cursing us. Said some very unpleasant things. I can’t blame Gourevitch.”
“Blame him for what?”
“Shooting.”
“Shooting?” I asked, thinking I must have misheard.
“Yes, yes, fired his weapon, shot the guy. Seconds later we heard the guy screaming, and saw him collapse to the ground.”
“You didn’t just say that, Shapiro.”
“It’s the truth, I’m afraid. We shot the guy.”
I got up and checked that no one was standing in the hallway. Then I shut the door and sat back down in front of Shapiro, who was trying to avoid eye contact.
“Now tell me exactly, and I mean exactly, what you did from that moment on,” I said. He told me that they walked over to the injured man and found him lying on the ground. “The guy was squirming in pain like you wouldn’t believe,” Shapiro said. “His knee was covered in blood. I told your grandpa this whole thing has gone too far. That it was supposed to be a nice evening, a morale-boosting activity, not a murder attempt, to which he said he always knew that a leftist who voted Mapam his entire life could not be trusted. Believe me, we could have kept arguing for hours, but Gourevitch started shouting that the guy had passed out. To tell you the truth, Yuli, I think that if it had been up to your grandpa, the poor guy would be buried under a basil bush right now, but Alex and I insisted on calling an ambulance. Eventually the medics also evacuated all three of us—me on account of my bruised knee, your grandpa because of the pain in his neck, and Gourevitch due to a panic attack. I’m not exactly sure what they gave your grandpa, but he’s been sleeping like a baby for the past three hours.”
“Did you report it to anyone?”
“No,” Shapiro said, “but an hour after it happened I got a phone call from Waxman that he was on his way over, and one of the nurses told me the guy we shot was lying on the third floor, being interrogated by soldiers.”
I was so angry I grabbed Shapiro’s chair, startling him. “No, really, you guys are truly a bunch of dimwits, Shapiro. Morons.”
Shapiro remained silent.
“You realize the four of you shot some poor Thai worker?”
“I don’t think he looked very Asian …”
“No, you really don’t get it, huh? Wake up, Shapiro. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison. You understand? Not military prison, real prison. Honestly, Shapiro, I don’t know what to tell you. Shooting a man like that? It’s not something the army can just sweep under the rug.” I got up and stood next to Grandpa. “Come on, you can stop pretending, I’ve had enough,” I yelled at him. “Wake up. Come on already, wake up!” I gave him a good shake, but he didn’t wake up.
“Let him sleep, Yuli, it’s not nice what you’re doing to him.”
“Such an idiot,” I hissed at him.
I sat back down in my chair, put my hands on my head, and stared at the floor.
We sat in front of each other in silence. Grandpa coughed every now and then, but with his remarkable stubbornness refused to wake up. I can’t say how long we sat there like that before I heard the door open.
An officer with lieutenant’s stripes stepped into the room; he looked more or less my age. A tall, balding guy with a buzz cut and a red beret, standing straight with his shoulders back like only officers do. “The Geriatric Platoon” was written on the strap of his M16, which was mounted with a scope and a laser sight—a ridiculously kitted-out weapon, especially for someone commanding elderly soldiers in the Jordan Valley. He considered me in silence, then shot his soldier an indifferent look.
“I’m sorry, Waxman,” Shapiro said. “I don’t know what came over us, I really—”
“Don’t worry,” he cut him off. “You’ll have enough time to think about it. Can you stand? Walk?”
“Not so much.”
Waxman took out his MIRS two-way radio, pressed a button, and grunted something unintelligible. “Someone will help you downstairs in a minute. There’s a driver waiting to take you to your interrogation.”
Shapiro lowered his gaze. “Will you be there?”
“No. The commander of the regional brigade will be, maybe the general of the central command too.”
A few moments later, a soldier walked in with a wheelchair. He helped Shapiro up and eased him into it. “After the interrogation they’ll bring you back for hip replacement surgery,” Waxman said.
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Shapiro replied, shaking his head in frustration as the soldier wheeled him out of the room.
Waxman sat down and pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket. “You’re Shapiro’s grandkid?” he asked, offering me a cigarette.
I turned it down and pointed at Grandpa.
“His,” I said.
Waxman opened the window, took out a lighter and lit up. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.
“Not personally, but this is a hospital. Maybe not a good idea.”
“You’re right, bro. When you’re right, you’re right.” He took two long drags, stubbed out the cigarette against the windowpane, and threw it away. “My girlfriend’s dying for me to quit anyway.” He unbuckled his belt and yanked his shirt out of his pants. Then he looked at Grandpa. “Has a few loose screws, your grandpa, huh? Did Shapiro tell you about the mission your grandpa planned?”
“Nope,” I said. “He just complained about his hip.”
“Listen, your grandpa planned something straight out of an action movie. I’m talking Hollywood.”
“All on his own?” I asked, trying to sound surprised.
“Kept a tight lip,” Waxman replied. “Did it all right under my nose.”
“So, does this mean he’s going to get another Shabbat detention?”
Waxman laughed. “He should be getting a lot more than Shabbat detention, believe me,” he said. “But as it stands, it looks like the four of them might be getting a commendation for it.”
“What? What are you talking about? Shapiro told me that …” I fell silent.
Waxman leaned in. “What did Shapiro tell you?”
I remained silent.
“I know Gourevitch tried to shoot the guy. Don’t worry, I know everything.”
“What do you mean, ‘tried’?” I replied. I couldn’t help myself.
“I mean just that, he tried to shoot the guy.”
“So how did the guy end up with a bullet in his leg if Gourevitch only tried?”
“What bullet in his leg, bro?” Waxman said. He looked at Grandpa, then turned his gaze back to me. “Wait, you want to tell me they actually think Gourevitch got him?” he said, and burst into roaring laughter. “Oh man, that’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. You think Gourevitch could hit a mark from two hundred meters away? At the shooting range that old geezer couldn’t hit a target from five centimeters away. The guy stumbled on a rock or something. You think I’d be sitting here smoking a cigarette if they had actually shot that drug mule?”
“Drug mule?”
“Wow, you’re really out of it, huh? You haven’t heard the news today? The medics found four kilos of cocaine on the dude. In his underwear. Some real fucked-up shit.”
He went on about all these senior officers who might attend the commendation ceremony, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking at Grandpa, trying to imagine Grandma Miriam sitting there next to him. If it were up to her, she would probably have thrown his ass in jail just for causing her such heartache.
WAXMAN AND I waited there for another hour to see if Grandpa would wake up, and he wouldn’t stop rambling the whole time, apparently thrilled by the chance to talk to someone under the age of seventy-five. He told me he had originally served in the paratroopers, said he was the only officer in the IDF willing to take on the role, which was only because he had gotten himself entangled in a blunder in his previous company. Something about a soldier who went missing, probably killed himself. He had to choose between a dishonorable discharge and this shitty role. He said that at the end of the day, being a commander was the same everywhere, the only difference was that the exemptions in the Geriatric Platoon were legit. That there wasn’t a single day when he didn’t learn of a new disease, and that at this rate he’d end up a specialist in Tel HaShomer Hospital. I asked him how long he planned to stay in the platoon and he said that the moment he finished a year in his current role, he’d see if they’d give him back his old post in the paratroopers. If not, he’d call it quits. “In which case, next year it’s law school at Tel Aviv University for me.”
“You a student, bro?”
“No,” I replied.
“Hm. So what do you do?”
“I’m a recently discharged soldier.”
“Where did you serve?”
“Golani.”
“No shit, I thought you were some puny desk jockey. Nice, bro. Grandpa following in grandson’s footsteps. Like one of those feel-good newspaper articles. So, when were you discharged? July ’09?”
“November 2007.”
He laughed again. “You’re hilarious, dude, you’re still calling yourself recently discharged? I’m going to use that on myself one day. So you’re probably a pothead, backpacked through India and shit?”
“Actually, no,” I said.
“South America?”
I shook my head. Waxman gave me a puzzled look.
“So, like, what have you been doing all this time?”
“A bunch of odd jobs, nothing serious.”
My answers clearly flustered him. “So what are you saying, bro, don’t you want to, like, study something? Get ahead in life?”
“Not right now,” I said.
“Okay, now I get you,” he said. “I have a friend like you. Sort of a beach bum. Believe me, bro, I’d love to be like you guys, just going with the flow. You probably smoke weed all day, huh?”
“Never even tried it.”
“Ever?” he asked incredulously.
“Not even cigarettes,” I said. It was a lie. I had smoked one cigarette, the night we left Lebanon. But I had no intention of sharing that with him. I can’t even begin to describe my disdain for people like Waxman, who can’t complete a sentence without the words “bro” or “dude.” Who are sure they have an explanation for just about everything. “Yup, bro, you totally get me. Going with the flow is my middle name.”
“Yup, I’ve got a nose for people,” he replied, pleased with himself.
I asked him who would replace him if he returned to the paratroopers. “To be honest, bro, just between you and me, I couldn’t give less of a shit. This whole unit is a fucking joke anyway. I give it two years, tops, before they dismantle it.”
“What are you talking about? You guys just caught a drug mule, you’re at the top of your game.”
“A fluke, dude, it was totally a fluke. The fact is this isn’t even an operational unit, and I doubt this event is going to change that.”
“What do you mean it isn’t operational—they were trained as rifleman 07, weren’t they?”
“Not really. It’s just something I gave them to boost morale. They’re barely 01.”
I knew they were cutting corners over there, but I never thought it had gone that far. “But they’re securing a settlement close to the border, how can that be?”
“I wouldn’t call it securing, more like sitting around on their asses,” Waxman said. “The settlements in the Jordan Valley started whining that the army wasn’t protecting them, even though there’s nothing to fight over here but sand. Anyway, about two years ago, that Rafi Eitan, the minister of pensioner affairs, offered the chief of staff an insane budget if they established a unit for the elderly, mainly for show. He wanted something for a photo op on TV, you know? To prove he did something with the seven seats he got in the Knesset. But bottom line, bro, no one has any illusions about us. Not the IDF and not the government. On the border itself they’ve got reserve soldiers, and if anything actually goes down there, which practically never happens, they won’t think twice before deploying some real infantrymen. It’s just a game everyone’s playing. The old geezers are getting something to do, the guys in the settlements know it’s better than nothing, and the IDF is getting funding for the whole project plus some extra spending money.”
“And your soldiers don’t know it’s all a sham?” I asked angrily. “That the army is making money off their backs?”
“Please, bro, you think they don’t know? They figured it out all by themselves. Your grandpa is the only person in the IDF who’s still taking this whole business seriously. I’ve run out of ways to explain to him that he has to learn to let go a little. Maybe you can have a word with him about it, it might help.”
Waxman’s MIRS rang.
“It’s the division commander,” he said proudly, and stepped outside. I stayed with Grandpa for a few more minutes. I couldn’t tell whether his expression was placid or perturbed.
The media began reporting the story about the old combat soldiers who caught the drug mule. The entire country was abuzz about it. Grandpa, who woke up the following day, was described as the commander of the operation and hailed a hero. A few journalists tried to swoop down on the hospital to land the first interview with Grandpa, but I made sure no one got in. The only person granted special permission to visit was the minister of the development of the Negev and Galilee, who told Grandpa he represented all that was good and right about Israel. Grandpa tried to appear indifferent to the commotion around him, but I knew all too well that he was loving the attention. That he felt he was finally getting the respect he was due.
A week later, Grandpa returned to the base. Around the same time, the chief of staff announced that the unit had proven its operational value, and that he would explore the possibility of establishing elderly platoons in the Nahal Brigade and the paratroopers. Two days later, while I was attending an open day at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, I got a phone call from the chambers of the president of Israel. They told me the president wanted to invite the four elderly heroes and their families to receive a special appreciation certificate.
I told Grandpa that I had fought a war and was never awarded that kind of honor, and he replied with a smile that if I asked nicely, he’d give me a few tips.
“Do you believe he got a commendation?” I asked Dad, but he noted it wasn’t a commendation, just a letter of appreciation. Ever since Dad had heard about the entire affair, he didn’t say a word. Didn’t even go to visit Grandpa at the hospital. He said he was terribly busy, that he had all these work things going on, but I knew he just couldn’t accept the fact he had been wrong about his father the whole time.
alman1964@gmail.com
November 1, 2009, 02:18:43
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
I found your civics paper! It was in a shoebox under my bed. It was lying there in a pile of souvenirs I had brought over from my old apartment in Petah Tikva. Remember that apartment? What a dump, huh? I spent three years of my life there. To tell you the truth, I regret every moment. Wasted years. I should have gone to India the day after your Dad and I split up. What little still remained between you and me somehow got ruined in that apartment. You’d come over once every two weeks, and wouldn’t say a word to me. I know you think I didn’t try hard enough, but let’s face it, Yuli, you didn’t give me much of a chance. Maybe I wasn’t the perfect mother, but it’s not like you were the perfect son. I’d never come out and say it, but I think you know it too.
And then came the phone call from that teacher of yours. What was her name? Dalia? I think it was Dalia. As I already wrote you, at that moment I thought it was a sign from above. I know it sounds like twisted logic to you, but I genuinely believed that even if you caught me going through your things, you wouldn’t be angry with me. That you’d even appreciate it, that I’d go to such lengths to be part of your life. You know how much I wanted my mother to go through my things? As a kid I used to write letters containing my most intimate secrets and scatter them around the house, hoping she’d read them, but she never so much as touched them. She just didn’t care, Yuli. So when I found your paper on the bed, I truly believed you had left it there for me to find.
“We Were Sparta,” you called it, like the title of some highbrow book. I sat there for two hours and three cups of coffee, and what can I tell you, Yuli, my child? I couldn’t understand it. Not really. The terms were completely foreign to me, your whole world view undecipherable. I never knew much about Athens or Sparta, so how could I understand what they were supposed to represent? I called your dad and asked him to explain it to me, but he refused to read something of yours that he didn’t get directly from you, and once again I felt as though he had defeated me. So I told him he was absolutely right and that I’d overreached, and then I hung up and read it all over again, from the beginning. And a third time. And I started reading about ancient Greece, hoping that if I understood your paper, maybe I’d begin to understand you. Like it was some key card into your mind. And you know what? I daresay maybe I did understand some of it. You wrote that there are two types of power in this world, a moderate power, like Athens was, and a violent one like Sparta. You said it was like the Haganah and the Lehi, or Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, that duos like those existed throughout human history. And if I’m not mistaken, you argued there was one major difference between them—that the moderate power sanctifies the quality of life, while the violent power sanctifies life itself. Meaning, Athens dealt primarily with improving the quality of its citizens’ lives, while Sparta was in constant battle over the mere right to live. You also wrote that as human beings, we want to believe the dominant power is the moderate one. That Martin Luther King made a greater impact on the world than Malcolm X, but that we’re just deluding ourselves, because we can’t handle the truth. Which is that human history is driven by its violent actors. “Like dark energy,” you wrote. And after that, you wrote the weirdest thing, which I don’t even know if I agree with, but you claimed that the violent force is also the moral one, because life itself should always come first. You wrote that Israel is the Sparta of the twenty-first century, and that that was a good thing. “Because where there is violence, there is life.” I’ll never forget that sentence. You wrote that people don’t even remember history. That Athenian culture might have contributed more to the world, to democracy, but it makes no difference. Because the great war between Athens and Sparta was won by the Spartans, and that, we mustn’t forget. What can I tell you, my child? All those words, all that violence, seemed so unrelated to you, to that inner peace of yours. I spent days on end trying to figure out where all those theories came from. The need to survive? To fight at all costs? Was it because of the divorce? The debts? I truly don’t know, Yuli. To this day, I can’t understand it. And it’s only now that I’m realizing it was with all those thoughts and convictions that you went off to war. God, that’s what you took with you into Lebanon?
I remember when I told you I had read the paper. It was during Friday night dinner. Just the two of us. I couldn’t keep it in any longer, so I told you your teacher called. And that I read your paper. And I started telling you how proud I was of you, and that if you wanted, you could become a wonderful university lecturer. And you didn’t say a word, Yuli. I tried to read your expression, searching for some clue into your thoughts, but you finished eating and went to your room, and it took me a few days to realize you were angry at me, even though I couldn’t understand why. It’s not like I read a secret love letter, it was a civics paper. And about such an academic subject, so impersonal. But you must have understood even then what I only learned two years ago, when you were deployed to Lebanon. That wars are not a national issue. It was always a personal matter, perhaps more personal than anything else in this world.
Sometimes I tell myself that’s when I lost you—the moment I read your paper. But that isn’t the case. It isn’t that simple. I wish there was a single moment in time I could point to and say—there, that’s when I lost my child. But there is no such moment to cling to. You wouldn’t even give me that.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
alman1964@gmail.com
November 1, 2009, 02:59:49
Subject: Re: Hi Yuli
Did you know I once bought a ticket home? The day Goldwasser and Regev, may they rest in peace, were abducted, before anyone knew that war was a war. I bought a ticket. Even packed a bag and drove to the airport. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t board the plane. Maybe I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing with my own eyes that you were no longer mine. Because as long as I couldn’t see your face, I could at least keep pretending you’re mine, you know? It’s not much of an excuse, I know. Maybe you were right all along. Maybe some women were never meant to be mothers.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
WE NEVER MADE it to the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.
I woke up early that morning, put on a white dress shirt, and gave myself a meticulous shave. After I finished getting ready, I went to check on Dad. He was lying in bed, curled under the blanket. He was still asleep. I woke him up and said we had to leave in fifteen minutes. He mumbled an apology, said he must have forgotten to set his alarm clock.
“Maybe you should go without me,” he suggested wearily, but I wasn’t about to let him get away with not coming.
“Enough. You can at least give him the respect of showing up at the ceremony.”
He heaved himself up in bed and stared at the floor.
“You’re right,” he said. He washed his face and put on his shoes, but persisted in his silent rebellion by refusing to wear anything elegant, settling for a simple gray T-shirt.
“I don’t get it. Aren’t you proud of him?” I asked as we walked out of the house. “Why are you being so oppositional?”
“It’s not that,” he said with a sigh. “Sometimes it’s just a bit too much, this whole thing.”
My phone rang. An unregistered number. “What’s up, bro?” asked a voice I couldn’t recognize. I put him on speakerphone.
“I’m fine, just, remind me, who is this?”
“Man, I forgot you’re such a pothead. It’s Waxman,” he said, and Dad grimaced.
“Listen, there’s a small hitch.”
“What kind of hitch?” I asked. Dad leaned into the phone.
“Look, there’s no good way to say this, but it looks like Neuerman … I mean, your grandpa, has Parkinson’s.”
Waxman said that when Grandpa had been admitted to the hospital, they ran a few routine tests. Four days ago some troubling results came back, so they brought him in again. He said Grandpa wasn’t being very cooperative. “I’m really no expert, but it doesn’t sound good.” He explained that in hindsight, the doctors thought the neck pain wasn’t brought on by Gourevitch falling on him, but were symptoms of the disease. Said it also explained the instances when Grandpa’s hands started trembling. That even he had noticed it himself, but thought it was just nerves.
Dad’s expression didn’t betray the slightest shred of emotion; it remained with the same frozen gaze fixed on the road, and I didn’t even know how to begin processing the news. Waxman further explained that according to the doctor he probably still had at least two good years ahead of him, but that we would need to meet with him to receive all the information.
“We could find him a new position in the unit for a few months,” he said, “maybe a quartermaster clerk or something. We’ll give him the option of an honorable discharge, but I assume you understand he can’t keep serving as a combat soldier in the platoon.”
“How did Grandpa react to this?” I asked, trying to imagine the look on his face when they gave him the news, but couldn’t.
Waxman didn’t reply.
“Well, how did he react?”
“Not great, that’s why I called you. I mean, at first he seemed pretty blasé about it. Said it was a bunch of baloney. I was sure he didn’t really care all that much, but the moment I told him we’d have to consider moving him to a new position … well, he disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Dad asked.
“Disappeared.”
“What do you mean disappeared?” I asked, wondering how much worse this story could get.
Waxman had no idea where Grandpa was. He said no one knew. The only thing they knew for sure was that the Renault Kangoo had disappeared along with him, and that one of the Thai workers saw the car exiting the settlement at dawn.
“What about the soldier at the gate?”
“On a bathroom break,” Waxman relied.
“I don’t get it. You can’t head a unit without having a soldier go missing on you?” I asked. I wasn’t actually expecting an answer.
“Listen, bro, I know it sounds bad, but everything’s under control, really. We’ve got half the command on their feet right now, everyone’s looking for him,” he said, trying to sound reassuring, talking in that regimental commander’s tone. “He’s not the first soldier to go AWOL. I’m sure they’ll find him in a couple of hours, by threatening Gourevitch or something,” he said and laughed.
We didn’t.
“Really, you’ve got nothing to worry about. The moment the ceremony ends, I’ll be joining the search efforts myself.”
“You’ll be joining after the ceremony?”
“Yup, five minutes after it ends, I’m out of there. After all, he’s my soldier.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at him. “Your soldier has gone AWOL. How can you even think of going to the ceremony?”
“Listen, man, it’s just going to be a couple of hours,” he said defensively. “Hundreds of soldiers are looking for him as we speak, another one won’t make a difference,” Waxman said, and added in a condescending tone, “It’s the president, bro, I can’t just bail on him.”
“Are you for real? What’s up with you? I—” I said, and before I could finish the sentence, Dad took the phone and hung up.
“I’ve had enough of that moron,” he said.
I nodded in agreement. “I’m taking the next exit, we’re going to find him.”
I’m not even sure I said where I was taking us. We both knew where we should be searching.
“What a mess,” Dad mumbled. He shrank into himself, as if Waxman’s news had hit him belatedly. “God, what a mess.”
“We’ll work it out,” I told him. “We managed to survive Golani, we’ll survive this too.”
Dad cracked the window open, struggling to take in a little air. “I’m not so sure,” he said, “I’m really not so sure anymore.”
THE DOOR WAS OPEN. A trail of army bootprints led us up the staircase. He was there, right where we thought he would be. Standing on the roof with his back to us, approaching the ledge, his rifle slung over his shoulder and his shirt untucked. His brown beret lay unclaimed on the floor. He turned to us for a moment, then went back to studying the cars driving along Jabotinsky Street. Slowly, I stepped forward. Dad remained by the door to the roof, holding on to the handrail.
“Parkinson’s, they tell me,” he spoke with a tired voice. “Can you believe it? One moment you’re getting a commendation, and the next they’re telling you you should start thinking of one of those Filipino caregivers.”
“Waxman said they need to run a few more tests,” I said.
“Oh please,” he grumbled, turning to face me. “I may be old, but I’m no idiot. Can you believe this? I make this unit famous, and a moment later they want to get rid of me!” He laughed feebly. “It’s like discharging Ehud Barak right after the ’73 raid on Lebanon, or Kahalani after the Yom Kippur War. Can you imagine?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Well, can you?” he barked at me.
“No, actually I can’t.”
“Of course you can’t!” he yelled in an explosion of anger. “If it weren’t for me, Waxman and his miserable old schmucks would still be stuck in the Valley guarding mosquitoes. Unthinkable!” he exclaimed, his voice strangled with emotion. “To kick someone to the curb like that? So my hands shake a little, so what? Schneider doesn’t have scoliosis? Pinchas doesn’t have a catheter? Just like that, to toss someone away like a piece of trash? It’s unheard of!”
I wanted to say something soothing, comforting, but the words got stuck in my throat like a jammed M16. I looked at Dad, hoping he’d whip out his calculator or say something logical that would make sense of the situation. But Dad didn’t say a word. He just kept standing by the staircase, clutching the handrail, fighting for every breath of air, unable to hide his helplessness.
We stood there, the three Neuerman men, facing each other, not knowing what to do.
“Gourevitch told me he knows of a nice old folks’ home,” Grandpa said, lowering his voice just to raise it back up. “I’ll go to my grave before I move into an old folks’ home!” he yelled. “No way, forget it. Fat chance!”
“No one said anything about a retirement home,” I tried to clarify, but Grandpa was no longer listening.
“I’ll just go on another mission. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll march into Gaza alone if that’s what it takes.”
“It won’t help,” I hissed.
“It would help a great deal. Put that idiot Waxman in his place once and for all.”
“Enough already. Enough with that Waxman of yours,” I yelled at him. “Enough with going on a mission whenever something in your life goes wrong.”
“You don’t get to tell me how to live, you hear? No one does.”
“Go conquer China for all I care,” I said. “You’re burning through these years trying to escape them.”
“You have no idea—” he yelled and waved his weapon, then tripped, swayed unsteadily for a few moments and fell to his knees. I leaped forward and caught him with both hands a moment before his face hit the floor.
“Bring a chair!” I yelled to Dad who was hesitantly pacing toward us. “Come on, hurry up,” I called out and slid the weapon strap off Grandpa’s shoulder. Dad brought over a dirty plastic chair from across the roof.
“Hold his back,” I told Dad, who still seemed confused. We heaved him up onto the chair. Grandpa’s neck tilted sideward and his hands went limp. He could barely keep his eyes open.
“I’ve had enough,” he mumbled between garbled words.
“You can’t just give up,” I told him, supporting his neck so he wouldn’t hit his head against the backrest.
“An eighty-year-old man can do whatever he wants,” he declared with a feeble voice.
“You really can’t,” I replied. “You’re not allowed. Gourevitch would miss you too much.”
I think I saw a flicker of a smile, but I can’t say for sure.
We barely managed to get him down the stairs. His legs kept giving way. He was heavy, a lot heavier than he looked. I put him into bed, peeled off his uniform, and yanked off his boots. I covered him with a blanket while Dad looked at us from the corner of the room. Then I stood beside the bed, my gaze fixed on his chest, making sure he was breathing. Only after he started snoring did I allow myself a deep breath.
Dad and I pulled shifts looking after Grandpa, switching every three hours. One of us was always at his bedside, making sure he wouldn’t try to make a run for it or work himself into a heart attack. I don’t think we exchanged a single word that entire day. Grandpa didn’t get up even once, and seemed pretty relaxed for an old man who only a few hours ago had threatened a ground invasion into Gaza.
At about ten P.M. I finished my shift and came out into the living room. Dad was sitting in the white armchair, staring at the dark TV screen.
I took a glass of water from the kitchen and sat down beside him. Grandpa’s weapon lay on the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t, I mean, that moment, I just …”
“I didn’t know what to do either,” I said.
“You did, you were great,” he sighed. “This shouldn’t be your responsibility, Yuli.” He started rummaging through his pants pockets.
“What are you looking for?”
“Pills,” he replied. “I probably forgot them at home.”
“You? Mr. Organized?”
“I know, right?” he replied, still going through his pockets.
“Go get some sleep,” I told him.
“It’s my shift. You go sleep.”
“It’s okay, I’ll stay on a bit longer with Grandpa. I’m not tired.”
“Okay, so maybe just a short nap,” he conceded. “But wake me up in an hour, okay? I’ll come switch with you.”
“Sure,” I lied to him. “No problem.”
He slipped off his shoes, kicking them into the middle of the living room instead of placing them neatly side by side like he always did. Then he leaned back in the armchair, struggling to find a comfortable position. I wanted to suggest he move to the couch or something, but I kept quiet.
I went back to Grandpa’s room and sat down beside him. I leaned in and took a close look at all the wrinkles and spots webbing his face. I gently smoothed his white hair, with the furtive hope that a neat appearance would keep him safe. It didn’t really help. He no longer looked like an eighty-year-old Golanchik. He just looked like an old man. A very old man.
I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. I can’t say for sure whether I fell asleep or not.
What I can say is that I heard the gunshot.
yulineuerman@gmail.com
November 6, 2009, 08:57:44
Subject: Update
Hey,
Dad passed away four days ago. The funeral was in Kfar Saba. The shivah is being held at Grandpa’s house.
I’ve moved into Grandpa’s for the time being, until things settle down.
You’re welcome to call,
Yuli
alman1964@gmail.com
November 6, 2009, 09:52:37
Subject: Re: Update
You’re not picking up. I bought a ticket, I’ll be there tomorrow evening.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
yulineuerman@gmail.com
November 6, 2009, 10:03:04
Subject: Re: Update
You don’t have to come.
Yuli
alman1964@gmail.com
November 6, 2009, 10:06:21
Subject: Re: Update
I’m not asking you.
Best,
Alma Rosenblum,
Emissary for the Jewish Agency for Israel in New Delhi
I WASN’T ACTUALLY reading The Myth of Sisyphus that day when we visited Grandpa in the Jordan Valley. I mean, I’d read it once, before I enlisted, but when I tried reading it again that evening, I just couldn’t. To be honest, since my army days I haven’t been reading much. Or at all, really. I try sometimes, but I just can’t seem to concentrate. After a few lines, the words start bouncing and blurring on the page and I get a headache and have to stop.
But it doesn’t matter, because you don’t really have to read the whole book to get it. Shapiro was right. Camus turned a story worth a sentence and a half into a whole book, and let’s face it, he gets his point across in the very first line. The rest of the book, like Shapiro put it, is just the babbling of a French fatty.
“There is only one really serious philosophical question,” he writes, “and that is suicide.”
That’s it. That’s the gist of it.
I think any normal person thinks about suicide at least once in his life. Not necessarily seriously, but at least superficially considers what would happen if he decided to end his life. The only person I know who never even thought about it once is Grandpa. Even though he never stopped talking about death, I am certain the idea of ending his own life never crossed his mind. He clung to life the way he had clung to Grandma Miriam, as if he never even knew that leaving of his own free will was an option.
Dad, on the other hand, had considered the matter carefully. Apparently, like with everything else in his life, he thought it through, weighing the pros and cons, factoring in the various considerations and implications. Eventually, the last thing he ever did on this planet was depart from it the only way he knew how—not as an impulsive decision, but in a premeditated, carefully planned move.
He had begun taking out life insurance policies a year and a half ago. As of now, I know of at least four different ones. I’m guessing a few more will pop up soon. I don’t know if back then he had already decided he was going to go through with it, or whether he just wanted to keep suicide as an option.
It was only a few days after the funeral, as I was tidying up his study, that I started learning new things about him, all these little bits of information I never knew. It’s crazy how much you can learn about a person from a few forms. Especially about a person like Dad. Maybe that’s why he didn’t bother leaving a note. He probably knew there was enough information to explain everything.
There were receipts from all the psychiatric treatments he had undergone. Dozens of prescriptions for the pills he’d taken over the years. According to the dates on the receipts, most of the treatments had taken place after Mom left, but not all. And some of the prescriptions for antidepressants were issued before I was even born. I also found insurance policies he had signed. I even saw my own signature on some of them, although I had no memory of signing them. Maybe it was when he made Grandpa sign those private health insurance forms before he enlisted. He knew I wouldn’t read them.
He also kept meticulous records of his debts. Not that I hadn’t been aware of this, but I didn’t want to get too involved. He owed far more than I had imagined. A few million. Some to the banks, some to friends. The police investigator said there was also a good chance he had gotten entangled with loan sharks. That there were all these calculations that didn’t add up. Sums that appeared in one ledger but not in another. He said it was highly unlikely a person like Dad would suddenly be careless with his records, and that he probably settled his debts on the black market before he killed himself, so we’ll never really know what happened there.
When the investigator told me that one of the motives behind his suicide was the insurance money, I told him there was no way. That Dad had told me himself life insurance companies wouldn’t pay death benefits if the person who took out the policy committed suicide. The investigator said that was only partially correct. The truth, like always, was in the fine print. Your family isn’t entitled to the funds if you take out insurance and kill yourself the very next day. The person has to be insured for at least a year for the money to be payable. But once that year is up, the family of the deceased is legally entitled to that money. Dad knew that. Of course he knew.
“So that’s why he told me about it? So I wouldn’t suspect?” I asked the investigator, but he didn’t have the answer to that one.
I like to think he had chosen that day—the day we dragged Grandpa off the roof—for a reason. That it, too, was a well-planned move. That there was a good enough reason behind his decision to leave us on such a shitty day. Grandpa thought it was because of the Tavor rifle. That he saw the opportunity and took it. But I think he’s wrong. Dad had enough ways and pills to end his life whenever he wanted. Maybe he had just tried holding on for as long as he could, but knew Grandpa’s illness was more than he could deal with. I guess that in his analytical mind, choosing suicide at that particular moment in time was simply the responsible thing to do. His way of ensuring he wouldn’t become a burden.
And maybe there is no logical explanation. Maybe plans get messed up even for people like him.
I WAS AWAKENED by a knock on the door. It was the fourth night of the shivah, almost midnight. Another knock. I got up and went to open the door. Shapiro was standing there in his crumpled service dress and a brown beret on his head. He saluted with his left hand and apologized for not coming earlier, said it was all because of that schmuck Waxman, who had taken away his Shabbat leave. He walked into the apartment, leaning on his cane, dragging his army boots across the floor. Avigail was standing behind him. Shapiro dropped his bag at the entrance to the living room and plopped himself onto the worn leather couch. “Oy gevalt,” he sighed and took a deep breath. “Listen to me, don’t ever get hip replacement surgery.”
I made them coffee and the three of us sat down in the living room.
“How are you?” Avigail asked me, placing her hand on top of mine. I imparted a few clichés, about how hard it was and how we were trying to pull through, and withdrew my hand.
“You don’t have to say all that tired bullshit,” she said. “It’s okay if you’re not up to talking about it.”
“Actually, I’m not.”
Shapiro took a sip of his coffee.
“This doesn’t have any sugar!” he croaked.
“You’re not allowed any,” Avigail replied peacefully. “Say, did you even take your pills?”
Shapiro didn’t answer.
“Grandpa!” She said he was behaving like a child, then got up and went over to his duffel bag, took out a pillbox and a big plastic baggie. She handed him a few pills and a glass of water, took out rolling paper from her pocket, opened the baggie, and started rolling a joint.
“What gives?” I asked in a huff. “This is totally inappropriate.”
“It’s for me,” Shapiro said. “Medicinal. Top-notch stuff,” he announced proudly. “Honey, would you be so kind as to roll one for Yuli as well? He’s had a tough week.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, waving my hands in anger to make it clear there was no way they were going to smoke pot in Grandpa’s house.
“Come on, what do you care?” she said. “You’ve got every excuse.”
“How are you even allowed to smoke pot?” I asked Shapiro. “You’re a soldier. In the army.”
“Right,” he replied. “The first IDF soldier with a permit for medicinal weed!”
“The family is awfully proud,” Avigail added with a smile.
“Listen, this is not cool,” I said. “If Grandpa finds out you smoked in his house …”
Avigail stopped rolling and looked somewhere past my shoulder. Shapiro turned his gaze to the same spot, his smile turning hesitant. For a moment, it seemed as if he was struggling to recognize the man in front of him. Grandpa was standing there in a white undershirt, long black pants and slippers, looking at us with a tired gaze.
“You’re up?”
He nodded, rooted to his spot. There were a few moments of silence.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“We came to visit your grandson,” Avigail replied. Shapiro kept studying Grandpa with a worried look.
“I mean, what are you doing with that?” he said, pointing at the baggie.
“Oh, that’s for my back pain,” Shapiro mumbled. “Can’t fall asleep without it. Want some?”
“No,” he said. “And don’t smoke in here.”
“Sorry,” Avigail said and quickly shoved it all back into her bag. Grandpa considered me for a moment, then looked at Shapiro. “You can do it upstairs,” he announced. “Where it won’t stink up the house.”
Grandpa shuffled back to his room, and two minutes later reappeared with a plaid jacket. Without saying a word, he started up the stairs to the roof, the three of us promptly following him.
We sat there in oppressive silence. Shapiro and Grandpa no longer looked like close friends, more like a couple of old fogies who happened to bump into each other in line at the Social Security office.
“Got a light?” Shapiro asked. Avigail handed him a lighter and he lit the joint and took a deep drag. “Oy,” he said. “Oy, this is good.”
“Give me the light,” Grandpa said and took a cigar out of his jacket pocket. He stared at it for a few moments, drew it to his nose and sniffed. Finally, he lit it, took a few deep drags, and surprisingly, didn’t cough even once.
“What’s this about, Neuerman? A few days into civilian life and you’re already a hedonist? The politicians would be proud of you,” Shapiro said quietly, still unsure whether he was allowed to joke.
“I was a hedonist in the army too,” Grandpa said. He told us that the day he had escaped from the base he not only stole the unit vehicle but also the cigars, the ones Waxman had bought in Cuba and wouldn’t stop bragging about.
“I wanted something to remind me of the little shit,” he said.
While Shapiro kept a straight face, Avigail couldn’t keep herself from laughing. Eventually Grandpa let out a smile too.
“Neuerman, what do you say, don’t you think your grandson should try a little puff?”
“He’s a big boy, he can do whatever he wants.”
“I’ve never smoked anything in my life, and I’m not about to start now. You’re welcome to offer to your granddaughter instead.”
“I don’t smoke either,” she said. “But it’s a shame you won’t give it a try. You should know it really helps people with post-trauma.”
“And what does that have anything to do with me?” I asked, tensing.
“Oh please, stop kidding yourself. You’re fucked up, Yuli. You know that perfectly well. Even now, it’s like you’re sitting here at someone else’s shivah.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her. I looked at Grandpa and Shapiro, but they kept their eyes on the floor, avoiding me.
“Don’t take it hard. Happens to the best of us,” she said, and once again put her hand on mine.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, riled. But I kept my hand beneath hers.
“You should listen to her,” Shapiro said. “Girlie here is a med student.”
I was starting to feel light-headed.
“Drink some water and rest your head,” she said before I managed to figure out what I was feeling. She leaned my head on her shoulder and started brushing her fingers through my hair. I was hoping she wouldn’t stop.
Shapiro told Grandpa they had a new game in the unit. Whenever Gourevitch fell asleep during guard duty, someone would sneak up on him from behind and rasp in his ear, “Neuerman’s coming!” He said Gourevitch jolted in fear every time. Grandpa laughed.
After half an hour or so, Avigail announced it was time to get going, and I had to part with her soft body. Shapiro promised to get a few sick days and come visit again. Avigail just smiled without saying a word.
Grandpa and I stayed alone on the roof. He gazed at the high-rises of the diamond district, and I looked up at the sky, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
“Nice girl, Shapiro’s granddaughter,” he said.
“Yup,” I replied. “Nice.”
“You know, once upon a time this roof had a full view of the sea.”
A sinking heaviness took over me, slowly spreading throughout my body. My every muscle. Had Dad been there, he would have whispered in my ear that Grandpa was talking nonsense again. I just wanted to go back to sleep. Back to a place where I didn’t need to face reality.
“Mom sent me an email saying she was on her way over,” I said.
“When do you think she’ll be here?”
“I’m guessing she’s already on the plane.”
“You must be happy about it.”
“If coming here for five minutes is what helps her feel like she’s being a decent human being, then whatever floats her boat.”
“Come on, Yuli, enough. Give her a chance.”
“You can’t give a chance to someone who’s never been there,” I said.
Grandpa sighed. “Maybe there are things you don’t know,” he replied. “Things I don’t know either. You can’t judge her like that.”
“So who can?” I asked. “Who’s allowed to judge her?”
“I don’t know, Yuli, I honestly don’t.”
We sat there silently for a few moments.
“Are you angry at him?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Are you?”
“Very.”
His eyes became red. He turned his gaze back to the high-rises.
“Well, I guess I’m a little angry too,” he said, grimacing. “I mean, how, how can a person go kaput just like that? Decide all of a sudden to end his life?” he protested weakly. “I don’t even know if I’m angry. I just don’t understand.”
“It’s pretty obvious to me.”
“I know the debts weighed heavy on him, but …”
“The debts were just an excuse.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The debts weren’t the reason.”
Grandpa hesitated, as if wondering whether he really wanted to ask.
“So why, Yuli? Why would a person do such a thing?”
“Because he had enough,” I replied. “He was sick of it all. Tired of living. He was like Mom, thinking only of himself.”
I saw how my words physically pained him. He regretted having asked.
“Tell me, you actually believe that nonsense?”
“What can I do,” I said. “It’s the truth.”
“Enough, Yuli. Enough. How can you even say such a thing?” he said in a stifled voice. “Your dad had debts. He needed—”
“We would have managed. You know perfectly well we would have. It was just the easy way out.”
Grandpa put his hand on his forehead and shook his head. “You don’t understand, Yuli. You’re a smart boy, but there are things you just don’t understand.”
My dizziness only got worse. I tried closing my eyes, but it didn’t help.
“You did smoke a cigarette once,” Grandpa said, “I know you did.”
“Do I look like a smoker?” I asked him. “The smell alone gives me a headache.”
“You tried it at least once, I know that much.”
“You caught me,” I said. “Lucky guess.”
Grandpa leaned in closer.
“It’s no guess,” he said. “Your dad told me.”
I looked out at the sky. The noise of the cars down on the street was driving me crazy.
“How could he have told you, he didn’t even know about it. It was in the army.”
“I’m telling you he knew, Yuli.” His words were strained. “He saw it with his own eyes.”
Two cars started honking down below. The noise was unbearable.
“Grandpa, cut the crap, okay? It’s not cool.”
“It was the night you came back from Lebanon, Yuli. I know.”
I jumped up from my chair. I thought I was becoming paranoid. That I was starting to hear things.
“He was there. He drove up north two days after the war broke out. He rented a room at some kibbutz there.”
“You’ve really lost your marbles, huh?” I growled. “Enough, I don’t want to hear any more of this bullshit. And it isn’t like you to pull stupid pranks on me. Leave me alone now.”
“It’s the God’s honest truth, Yuli. He was up north the entire time,” he said, his voice strangled. “I’m telling you. I talked to him on the phone every day.” He asked me if I remembered how a group of civilians was waiting to cheer us in the assembly area the day we came out of Lebanon.
“No,” I said, even though that wasn’t entirely true. I did have a vague memory of a few people showing up there with small charcoal grills and Israeli flags. They threw a big barbecue for the whole unit.
“There were a lot of civilians there, Yuli. Your dad was one of them.”
“No way,” I said. “There’s just no way.”
“I’m telling you,” Grandpa stuttered with a choked-up voice. “He told me everything, said he stood at a distance, but he spotted you, all right. He saw you sitting there alone, far from the rest of your unit, smoking a cigarette. He said it pained him to see you like that.”
“Enough already!” I yelled at him. “Enough with the lies. Enough!”
Grandpa’s last sentence was more than I could bear. I kept screaming at him that it couldn’t be true, that it just made no sense. I sat back down in the chair, my legs shaking. The dizziness was driving me crazy. I couldn’t think straight. I felt how everything was crashing into me. Grandpa got up and approached me, putting his hand on my shoulder.
“Then why didn’t he tell me about it?” I asked. “Even in passing? He had two years to tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Grandpa replied. “To tell you the truth, I’ve asked myself the same question more than once.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Driving the entire way there without telling me,” I hissed. “It’s so like him.”
We started dragging ourselves down the stairs, holding on to each other, saying that maybe the two of us ought to consider a career in nursing. I collapsed onto the couch.
Grandpa went to his room, brought a blanket, and covered me up. “So maybe only I should consider a career in nursing,” he said, and put his hand on my head. “My Yulinka.”
I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me, his eyes full of pity.
“It was on your bucket list,” I told him.
“What?” he asked.
“The cigar,” I said. “It was on your list.”
He smiled. Then he got up and turned off the light.
I closed my eyes and remembered. How I sat there on a rock. How I smoked the cigarette the deputy company sergeant major had brought me. He knew I didn’t smoke, but said that at times like these, it didn’t really count. I remembered looking at the civilians standing outside the assembly area. At Dad, who stood there with his fanny pack like some sad weirdo, right behind the guy fanning the grill. It looked like he was trying to help him, but he knocked over a plateful of kebabs, doing more harm than good. I remember seeing his face, blurring in the white smoke.
I knew it wasn’t a real memory. But at that moment, it made do.