TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
May 23, 1967
Tamara pounded through the streets, sweating in the dry heat, her heart pumping. She felt like throwing away her jacket, it was too heavy and hot. She kept looking over her shoulder but every taxi was full; men were rushing home to get their guns or racing to their units. Arie’s driver had been called up days ago, and there were no buses, they were all transporting soldiers. She passed women digging ditches in the gardens of their apartment buildings, and elderly men mixing concrete to block up windows against shrapnel. Across the road a woman clung to her uniformed man as his friends shouted at him to get into the truck. Men bent by their cars painting headlights blue. Ahead of her a man stood back, surveyed his handiwork, put the paint into the trunk, and climbed behind the wheel. She ran up and asked if by any chance he was going to Herzliya.
“No, Haifa, I’m in the navy.”
Tamara looked around with wild eyes and said, “Good luck then, sir,” and turned away.
“But it’s on the way. Jump in, I’ll take you.”
“Oh, really, that’s so kind of you. My husband has been called up and I have to say good-bye.”
“My wife said good-bye,” he said. “Three years ago.”
Tamara looked at him in alarm, but he laughed. “A joke,” he said.
“Oh, good, I was worried.”
“A man can wish, can’t he?”
“You’re joking again?”
“What else is there to do? I’m forty-nine, one year to go and I could have got out of it, instead I’m going to be sick for the next month.”
“You’re in the navy and you get seasick?”
“From the food, my dear. And I’m the cook.”
Tamara smiled, for the first time since Arie had bullied the truth out of her that morning. He had shaken her, raised his hand, shouted, threatened her, and in the end she admitted it: she was sleeping with Peter. She thought he would hit her but instead he had backed away, red with fury, and rushed out of the house. When she stopped shaking she phoned Peter at the office to warn him, but he had left for a walk. She couldn’t leave a message, he had always told her not to, so she had gone to work in Tel Aviv. And then Arie had called her, as if he had forgotten their fight. He told her he had to join the brigade, he wanted to kiss her good-bye, in case there really was a war.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said. “I couldn’t bear not kissing him,” she said, knowing despite everything it was the truth.
“Well, he’s a lucky man. Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll get you home in twenty minutes.”
But by the time she got home, Arie had left. At forty-three, he was still a tank platoon commander, he had to prepare the equipment and get tanks assigned, preferably before the crews arrived. And this wasn’t another exercise, the Arabs were coming, again. His third war, the third time only luck and God would stand between him and death, if you don’t include the Holocaust.
Tamara stood in the hall staring at the envelope she found on the side-table. She turned it over in her hand, images from that morning flooding back. We had a huge fight, she thought, maybe the worst ever, and now he’s gone to war. He must be furious, she failed him, and oh God, what if something happens to him? She didn’t even say good-bye. The last he saw, she was cursing him, crying. With trembling fingers she opened the envelope and slid out the Hebrew note:
Tamara,
You broke my heart. You cheated with my own brother. I saw him today, we had a fight. All a man wants in war is to come home again. Now I wonder, do I even have a home? I could not wait any longer so I can’t even say good-bye. So be it. I may not have been the best husband but you’ll never know how hard I tried.
Your Arie
The note took her breath away, tears came to her eyes. She sat miserably against the cushions on the sofa, drawing her legs up beneath her. What did you expect, she thought, a love letter? So Arie had a fight with Peter. A real fight? Fists? Or an argument? She could only call Peter in the evening. They knew one day they would have to have it out with Arie, and now it had come to pass, but at the worst possible time. What had she done to him? A soldier has to have a home to come back to, a reason to lay his life on the line. What would Arie be fighting for? His country, yes. His family? She hoped so. He loves Carmel and Daniel so much, he’s a wonderful father. She felt sick in the stomach.
So much had happened since they all met—what? Seventeen years ago. What a mistake. She should have waited for Peter. But she was so young, so desperate in the refugee camp, and so afraid that Peter had made her pregnant and left her. She had been so impressed by Arie’s room. Hot water! And his old car. She shook her head in disbelief. Now look at this house, it’s a mansion, two new cars in the driveway, another in the garage. But so what? She walked to the end of the garden and stared at the horizon, where the sun hung steady, reassuring, the constant in the clear blue sky. She sighed. How she longed to live with Peter. Her reverie was broken by the clanging of the telephone. She ran into the house. Peter? Arie? She hesitated before picking it up, catching her breath. “Hello?” she said at last. There was a scratching sound, beeps and a woman’s voice. “Tamara, Tamara, is that you?” American accent.
“Yes.”
“Tamara, this is Mrs. Wilson from Taos, in America, Alice’s mother.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilson, of course, how are you, is everything all right?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. We’re hearing terrible things. It’s no place for a young girl, I want Alice to come home immediately. I couldn’t get a call through to her kibbutz. It’s near the border with Syria. I asked her to come home before but she wouldn’t. Now she must. Can you tell her? Are you in touch with her? Hello? Hello?”
Tamara laid a hand on her heart, she hadn’t realized how much stress she was under. She didn’t know who she wanted to hear from most, Peter or Arie.
“Mrs. Wilson, I can try to get a call through to her but it’s very difficult at the moment, the lines are busy all the time because of the situation. I’ll try to tell her though.”
“Please, it’s dangerous…”
After five more minutes telling Tamara she had to hang up because the phone call was so expensive, Mrs. Wilson hung up, just as Carmel came in.
“I don’t think so,” Carmel said, when her mother told her what Mrs. Wilson wanted. “I got a letter from Alice this morning. If there’s a war she volunteered to work as a hospital assistant. She said that on her kibbutz a hundred and twenty men have been called up, out of a hundred and eighty. Can you imagine? All the women afraid for their men. So she feels she has to do something too. And, Mummy, I also want to do something. So as from tomorrow, it’s all organized, I can leave school early, I’m the new mailman.”
Tears sprang into Tamara’s eyes as she hugged her daughter. Such a darling, soon this child too will be a soldier. With all her heart and soul, Tamara hoped there would be no more war. When Carmel, still in her mother’s arms, asked why she was crying, Tamara said, when she could, “for so many things, my sweet little Carmi, for so many things.”