SAFED, ISRAEL
June 10, 1967
“Aize bardak,” what a mess, Ido said to his sergeant, Avinoam, trying to park the Jeep. Ziv Hospital’s parking lot swarmed with men in uniform, families carrying baskets of food, ambulances weaving through, sirens wailing. Exhausted nurses in green smocks and doctors in white coats leaned against pillars and sat on patches of grass or brick walls, smoking silently with vacant stares.
The emergency room was even worse and the corridors, smelling of disinfectant and blood, almost impassable. Wounded soldiers lay on stretchers on the floor with drips in their arms, parents knelt at their sides, tannoys kept up a din of announcements, calls for doctors, and appeals for quiet.
“This is where they bring the wounded?” Ido muttered, “I’d rather be on the Golan. Well, maybe not.”
“Maybe not,” Avinoam said. “Hey, there’s David.”
From the middle of a row of beds they saw David waving. Their combat boots clattered on the tiles as they went to him. Ido kissed him on the head. David had been the joker of the unit, now he just looked tired and used up. “So what’s the story?” Ido said.
“Nothing. I’m fine. I’m lucky, the bullet missed everything…”
“Well, it hit you,” Avinoam said.
“But it missed all the vital organs. They took it out this morning, just has to heal, I’ll have a hole the size of a fingertip, otherwise, I’m great.”
“Good to hear,” Ido said, sitting on the side of the bed. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen anyone. It’s bedlam, but the doctors, nurses, the volunteers, they’re all amazing. You think we had it tough. They have to look after us.” He tried to laugh but contorted in pain. At the mention of volunteers Ido felt a pang of regret: what a pity that Alice was in Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, he didn’t know when he would be released, when he would see her next.
“It won’t hurt for long,” Avinoam tried to reassure David, resting his hand on his arm. They fell silent, looking around the ward. The wounded soldiers most needed sleep but distraught families crowded around their beds. A nurse drew a curtain around one soldier and ushered his parents out. Another nurse wheeled in a trolley. They heard a single shout. “Uunh!” the mother gasped, as if it was she in pain, and fell onto the next bed. The soldier in it, his head and chest swathed in bandages, shifted to make room. “Sit down,” they heard him say. “Your boy is in good hands.”
The ward fell silent for the radio news: A spectacular victory. The country trebled its size. The world applauds the plucky Jewish state. Ido said, “Let’s hope the cease-fire holds, it started at 4:30.”
“Yeah. I can’t go through that again,” Avinoam said.
“Let the world rejoice,” Ido said, “but it’s not the way I feel.” They counted the names of their dead buddies, it was inconceivable how many there were. Just in one battle, at Tel Faher, of twenty-five Israeli infantrymen, the Syrians killed twenty-one. So many funerals to attend, families to comfort. A gloomy silence fell over them, with Ido and Avinoam sitting on either side of David, holding his hands. “Well,” Ido stood at last with a sigh, “let’s go find the other lucky ones.” In their new world, a bullet in the stomach or shrapnel in the head counted as lucky. “Come on, Avinoam. How many of our guys are here, David, do you know?”
“No idea. Most of the wounded went to Rambam. There must be a list somewhere.”
“You’re kidding. Maybe in a week. Okay, gotta go, we’ll be back. Anything you need? Shall we call your family? You want to send a letter?”
“That’s okay, they have volunteers here, they do all that. There was a pretty Yemenite chick from Rosh Pinna here last night, big lips, she held my hand for an hour.” He smiled at the memory. “I wouldn’t let go. I kept trying to pull her hand under the sheets.”
They burst out laughing. “No, don’t, it hurts,” David cried. “But I tell you what, that was one strong girl, I couldn’t get her hand past my knee.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Tonight I’ll have better luck.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Ido said. “We’re off, we’ll see who else we find.”
“Thanks for coming, guys, really. I mean it.” He looked away.
“Is that a tear?” Avinoam said. “Don’t be a baby.”
“Piss off.”
“Okay, he’s officially healed,” Ido said. “Take care, my friend, see you very soon.”
“Yes, Captain. I’d salute but I never learned how.”
David followed them with his eyes. Lucky bastards, he thought. He edged down in the bed to relieve the pressure on his stomach. He hadn’t even known he’d been shot, it must have come sideways through the flak jacket, he had felt an impact but thought a stone had somehow jumped up, he’d kept jumping from bush to rock, weaving and firing, and only when he lay behind a boulder to catch his breath did he see the blood, and the pain set in. It was Avinoam who fell next to him and bound the wound. He should have thanked him just now, he wished he had, but he couldn’t find the words. Instead they had just held hands.
Ido led the way, scanning each ward as they passed, on the left and right, searching for wounded comrades. They found Jojo surrounded by his family who lived nearby in Kyriat Shmona, a town of mostly Moroccan immigrants. His neck was in a brace, his left arm in a sling, and his stomach and chest bandaged. He had been shot three times, but the greatest pain was the sprained ankle. He should have rested it but couldn’t, he had hobbled and fought for an hour. Now it was the size of a football.
Across the noisy corridor was Yoram, the medic who interrupted his studies in England to rescue Israel. He’d go back to school with a leg missing below the knee from land mine shrapnel. His eyes were swollen from tears.
After two hours they emerged into the fresh air and slumped on a wall with exhausted medics and volunteers. For ten minutes they found no words that matched their thoughts.
Watching an ambulance load a burn victim for the drive to Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, Ido broke the silence with a dull monotone. “At least we won.”
“Some victory.”
“Shit.” Ido stamped a foot, as if extinguishing a cigarette stub. “Now, what? All I want to do is go home.”
“Me too.”
“They’ll keep me here till last,” Ido sighed. “The men go home first, officers clean up.”
They sat with slumped shoulders, watching the bustle around them. At the entrance to the hospital soldiers who could walk stood with drips in their arms, snacking, chatting. Ido stood. “Come on, let’s get back to base, they may need us.”
They walked past another burn case being maneuvered into an ambulance and climbed into the Jeep. Avinoam twisted around, with his arm around the back of Ido’s seat as he backed out, while Ido stared into the distance. He felt depressed, and relieved, but above all, in this moment, he just felt lonely as hell.
There was a knock on the window. He looked up, and started. Her long brown hair was pulled up beneath a scarf, her eyes were wide with surprise, her mouth was open with delight, she was walking backward as the Jeep moved, holding onto the roof. “Avinoam, stop,” Ido shouted. He leapt out. “Alice! Oh Alice!”
“Ido, it is you!”
She leapt onto him, wrapped her legs around his waist so that he staggered back against the Jeep. She was laughing and planting kisses all over his face. Her three friends stood in surprise.
When he disengaged from her lips and she slid off him Ido could barely speak through his smile. “Alice, oh God, I’m so happy to see you. What are you doing here? I thought you were in Haifa.”
“I was, but now they’ve sent us here.” She nodded over her shoulder at her friends. “We’ve come to help.”
Ido smiled at them, a boy and two girls, foreign-looking. “We’re all volunteers from kibbutzim. We met in Rambam. Oh, Ido, thank God you are safe.” She tapped his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his legs. “You are, aren’t you? You’re not hurt?”
“No, no, we’re just checking on our mates.” He took her hand and pulled her aside. “Let me look at you. It’s only been a week since I saw you. What, eight days? It seems like a year.” He hugged her again, stroked her hair, and her face, and kissed each eye. “God, I miss you, I need you. How was it? In Rambam?”
“It was everything. It was horrible, it was wonderful, it was sad, but in a weird way. Boys with terrible wounds, but alive. Nobody knew what to feel. So we just helped. I wrote letters, I held their hands, I helped families find their men. I felt emotions I never knew existed. We have so much to talk about. But who cares about me. You? What happened to you?”
“Let’s not talk about it. Not yet. It was terrible. At least we won.” He clasped her to him, his breath tickled her neck, his chest rose and fell against her breast. He stared into the distance, seeing nothing at all, clinging to her thin frame as if to a sapling in a storm. She felt him tremble and shudder and held him tightly, wanting to comfort him, while tears rolled down her cheeks. She had seen boys with terrible wounds, but knew now not all wounds can be seen.
At last they unfolded and returned to her friends. The volunteers were crowded around Avinoam, tall with black curls, big-chested, in combat boots and uniform, his Uzi strapped to his shoulder, a pistol in his belt. His eyes had their old sparkle. He looked at Ido with a smirk. “Meet Birgitte,” he said. “She’s from Denmark.”