Three Weeks in October Read online

  Leib pulled back his white doctor’s gown and the sleeve of his checked shirt to show me a tattooed number.

  “I’m not being dramatic,” he apologized. “We had numbers. Better than discs—only with burns deep enough the number is removed too. We were nameless but not anonymous. Somehow, when it is over and time to go home, I doubt that I can leave without making sure that this patient—alive or dead—has a name, an identity, someone who will place flowers for him in a vase or on a tombstone.”

  I must have fallen asleep, for when Shula gently touched my head it was dawn.

  On nights like this I felt useless. Tired, unhappy, uninspired. An in-between person. Not young enough to spread youthful vitality around, not old enough to contribute motherly wisdom. Not pretty in a staggering way which could be a pleasure to some, but an ordinary face with regular features, decent figure and mild temper. I wasn’t a professional but a fast learner, yet afraid to make a mistake and therefore not entirely independent. I fit into the job with a sense of duty, very little satisfaction and a nostalgia for other wars when it was all different.

  Before going home I stopped at the rehabilitation center. I saw Uri briefly, brought him some sweets and magazines and was happy to see he was doing well.

  “We should talk sometime,” his mother said. “About old times.”

  “What is there to say?”

  It was a bleak Saturday morning. I drove badly and impatiently for no reason. My mother must have noticed my mood for she offered to take the children to visit her sister. Daniel was asleep on top of the bed, still dressed. We were now alone in the apartment. It made me feel uncomfortable. Ever since the war started, I couldn’t stand being touched, didn’t want to make love. I rejected all affection.

  I took it for granted that he understood.

  Daniel wasn’t really asleep. He watched me undress and get into the shower. He made room for me and though I planned to sleep in the children’s room, I couldn’t hurt him.

  I lay there restless and irritated. Daniel sensed it.

  “We are attacking now on all fronts. Syria, west and east of Suez.”

  “You sound like the military spokesman.”

  “I’m saying it to tell you it’s nearing an end, not trying to boost your morale.”

  “I am exhausted.”

  “Why don’t you ever cry? You used to.”

  He was a wise man. I loved him. I reached for his hand, saying to myself—don’t be a fool. That’s all you have and it’s a hell of a lot. I missed the children and was sorry my mother took them away.

  “Anything happened?” he asked.

  “The same everything. Every day the same becomes less bearable. Repetition makes it no better—like playing on one string and reaching a breaking point.”

  “Would you rather work days again?”

  How wise of him not to suggest I quit. I almost expected the “Haven’t you done enough?”

  “Perhaps. I’ll talk to the head nurse on Sunday.”

  “Sleep now. I’ll make some lunch when you get up. I have to be off in the afternoon.”

  You used to cry, he had said. There were no tears now, not for years, not as a handy weapon, not as an expression of self-pity, not as indulgence or release. Not much laughter either, the carefree rolling uncontrolled laughter was buried somewhere with the tears in the dull comfortable rather satisfactory routine. Long silences replaced the tears and a warm occasional smile substituted for laughter. Some kind of maturity, I supposed, settling for it.

  Toward the evening we all went to the hospital. My husband visited a wounded colonel in the orthopedic ward and I took the children to Ward L. They had been there before. Ofer was fascinated by everything medical and behaved like a visiting professor. Rani dragged along. This was our, their life, and there was no way or reason to spare them. Children were part of the patients’ life, too, and they enjoyed the children’s visits, shared the heaps of sweets showered on them and told war stories from the fascinating never-ending “book of battles.”

  I had never taken them to room 7, for many good reasons. The ward’s routine was hard enough to take without introducing the irregular. Now we went in because of Avi. The boys brought him drawings and we all pretended the other soldier was asleep. Avi told them how inadequate I was in school, and the children left a painting for “the other guy when he wakes up.”

  Daniel came in, chatted some, and took the children home.

  When they left, Avi asked for the public phone to be brought in. He dialed 18 and asked the operator for a New York number, collect. I left the room.

  In the waiting room I saw two familiar faces.

  “Remember us, nurse Amalia? You promised coffee two nights ago!”

  They were now in hospital pajamas but each had his army bag on the shoulder.

  We went into the empty kitchen. In a cupboard there was some good Turkish coffee for special occasions, and we watched it boil, enjoying the smell.

  “So you did stay, after all.”

  “We came to say good-bye. We are moving back tonight. We didn’t have a chance to say good-bye to the nurse in Ward F. Please tell her in the morning we thank her.”

  It looked suspicious, pajamas and all.

  “Do you have stamped passes?”

  “Did anyone say the war was over?” They laughed. They seemed well enough, but obviously they were running away and I was forced to be their partner.

  They went into the bathroom and changed into uniforms brought to them by friends. The bandages were hardly noticed now, and they dumped the hospital stuff in the laundry room.

  “It was a good forty-eight-hour vacation, and good coffee, but we won’t be back here.”

  “My friend,” the one said, “doesn’t like the smells here, it makes him dizzy.”

  They were off before I could deliver a lecture on regulations and rules. I never asked for their names and presumed the nurse in Ward F would know and report properly. By then they would be wherever they wanted to be.

  The supper cart arrived, I pushed it along the rooms. In the big room some Hassidic rabbis organized a prayer and song session, stopping only for the TV news.

  It was the third Saturday of the war. How the tone had changed. The soldiers were watching the broadcast as if it were a bullfight. They were aware of the cost, but the announcements were confident and clear. The fog and vagueness were gone and it was obvious we were winning. The occupied area west of the canal was widened. Forces streamed in and enemy tanks, missiles, artillery were destroyed. The planes were shot down today and our advancing troops had full air support. The Syrian front was quiet.

  The news carried me back to the Six Day War. The same expression of self-confidence and faith in the faces listening to battle reports.

  I collected empty trays, returned the cart to the kitchen and walked to the end of the corridor. The last room was dark. I didn’t switch on the light, presuming Avi to be asleep.

  “Amalia? I am not asleep.”

  “Want some tea and cake?”

  “Not really. I talked to my parents. To my wife and child.”

  “And?” I turned on a small light.

  “I played the hero. I didn’t have to, but I did. I could say I was here, alive and well and doing something or other.”

  “And you said you were in battle, wounded and in the hospital.”

  “Right. In a glorified way, as if insisting on giving them a guilt feeling, or anxiety, or a source of pride. And they are coming over as soon as they can … all four of them. I can’t stand the idea. We’ll have to think of something to stop them.”

  “They love you.”

  “Sure they do. Love doesn’t have to express itself in presence. They’ll come with my favorite sweets and the latest book and good American shaving cream and flame-retardant pajamas and the big wholesome feeling will become small change.”

  “Put yourself in their place. What other choice do they have?”

  “What I did is put myself i
n my roommate’s parents’ place. That’s what made me call. Suddenly I thought he’d better die and this scared me stiff.”

  In the door we could see one of the Hassidic visitors. He had a beard and side-curls and a black coat. His tallith was spotless white and he smiled broadly.

  “So God is here, too,” Avi said to him cynically.

  “How do you feel today?” the man asked, in the softest of voices.

  Avi relaxed. I left the room and when I looked in an hour later the man was still there and they were talking. Later Avi said they discussed the man in the other bed.

  “The Rabbi said it’s impossible. In a Jewish country there cannot be an ‘unknown soldier.’ ‘We are a family,’ he said. ‘We don’t have recluses, hermits, not even priests. We are responsible for one another, we are a part of a pattern, with things in common and a common destiny.’ No one is a ‘nobody,’ or even an ‘anybody.’ ‘In a few days,’ he said, ‘his identity will be known. Someone will visit, his absence will be felt by somebody who cares.’”

  “Let’s hope so. In a couple of days you can move into the big room anyway. Two of the boys are leaving for rehabilitation, and you can have less disturbing company.”

  “You know I’ll be disturbed by him wherever I am.”

  Major Ilan wheeled himself in, Lea following. He had a few maps in his lap and was making the rounds explaining strategy to whomever would listen.

  He spread the maps on Avi’s bed. “Your feet are north,” he said. Avi’s left hand held the Suez Canal and the East of Egypt section, on his waist lay the center—Tel-Aviv and the hospital area—and the beach ran along the left side of his body.

  Ilan pushed the wheelchair toward the north. “Here, that’s still left, Mount Hermon. We have to get to the top before cease-fire and hold control of the path all the way up. Only a very well-trained brave unit can do that, and you know which one I mean,” he winked.

  As if there were no time to lose in the midst of battle he turned along the bed and the map of Sinai. “Another unfinished story is the city of Cairo and the Ismailia-Suez road. This way we’ll isolate the 3rd Army, destroy all missile sites along the bitter lakes and perhaps cut off the 2nd Army from Cairo as well.”

  “Don’t point so hard, it hurts,” Avi yelled.

  “Sorry, my friend. I get carried away. I can’t stand to be away from my unit.”

  Ilan’s face expressed the excitement of planning. His eyes reflected the sadness of someone who counts the casualties at the same time.

  “In three days it can be done, if your people in Washington will only let us.”

  “His people are along the canal, just the way yours are,” Lea said.

  “OK, I take it back. Sensitivities again.”

  It all sounded easy in the sheltered room, on the map. I wondered how many helicopter landings we would have for each battle, how many more we could afford. Suez wasn’t Jerusalem, I thought, but Ilan knows better.

  “Nothing new here?” Ilan asked about No. 7 while leaving the room. Nobody bothered to answer.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Rina was in the waiting room and we greeted each other politely. She said Uri was better now, and able to leave the hospital.

  “Maybe we’ll never meet again,” she stated.

  “Shalom, then. And good luck.”

  “I came here to tell you something.”

  “You don’t have to.” I didn’t think that she felt like talking. I certainly didn’t.

  “I found letters. Your letters to Amnon. I should have given them to you, but I destroyed the lot. I feel badly about it, I had no right to.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can understand.”

  “It didn’t help. The letters are gone, but you were there. Part of our lives, part of my memory of him. I was jealous and bitter, and then I realized I am thinking as if he were still alive.”

  “If he were alive, it wouldn’t have gone on anyway. He never thought of leaving you, or the children. Why bring it all back now?”

  “Was I not a good wife to him?”

  “Too good maybe. The fact that a man has a good wife does not mean he doesn’t have affairs. It just means more guilt.”

  “You weren’t married then.”

  “No. I met Daniel after Amnon’s death. As a matter of unhappy fact, on the day he was killed.”

  “Do you have letters from Amnon?”

  “No. I didn’t keep any. Didn’t want to embarrass anybody.” That was a lie. In the bottom of a drawer there was a thick envelope with letters written in Amnon’s neat handwriting.

  “Come and see us sometime. Uri adores you. You’ve been good to him, and I was sulky and hostile. I really came to apologize.”

  “I might have behaved the same way in your place. It doesn’t really matter, does it? What’s important is that Uri is well, completely well.”

  We were all so kind, I thought. Forgiving and reconciling, full of grace and placability. A bunch of angels, all bitches and bad guys gone with the first round of ammunition. Our horrid beautiful war smoothed all wrinkles and differences and feuds. How shall we ever resume the normal balance again?

  Another cease-fire, I thought when she left. A lonely woman living in a past she is forced to share.

  With me. The way I shared a present with Amnon. Always a present. We never referred to past meetings, never remembered together things we did or said. We never planned the next meeting or thought together of things we might do some other time. We just loved, there and then and without a pattern that depends on continuity.

  It was all romance, cornfields in full moon and deserted beaches on windy winter nights. And it was a rich man’s romance.

  Amnon belonged to a wealthy industrialist family. They owned a chocolate factory, and he studied business administration at the best schools and joined the business. He was a cynic, but not without humor, and he was spoiled without lacking compassion.

  I met him in a cafe on Diezengoff Street. I had a job with a publisher as a reader, a one-room apartment and lots of dreams. Vaguely I had a boyfriend, which means I had someone to go to the movies with once a week, but I wasn’t in love. Amnon found an excuse to join my table. He said he was bored, married, rich, tired and also lonely.

  No, he didn’t want to go home because he doesn’t feel emotionally presentable to his wife.

  “I shall enjoy the worst in you.”

  “Quite so.”

  First he showed off. He drove a big American car, so conspicuous I looked around to see if anybody had seen me get into it. He had a gold chain attached to a gold watch and smoked a Dunhill pipe. “Only the best,” he kept saying, always adding, “and who needs it.”

  One hour after we met we made love and an hour later we felt we were in love. No life stories exchanged, no phone numbers, no preliminaries, just a head-on dive into a deep togetherness.

  I must have smiled sitting there in the nurse’s station, for Leib asked me what was funny.

  “Pleasant memories. A man I knew who was killed in the Six Day War. Uri’s father.”

  “Big love?”

  “Yes. A man who had everything. I was part of this everything.”

  “Enjoy remembering,” he said. “Right now past is better than present.”

  Money helps romance. There were flowers instead of phone calls, messages delivered by hand, carefully chosen little gifts and, naturally, lots of chocolates. Amnon was of medium height, on the short side. He wasn’t active in any sport, but he had a wiry body and a sportive look. Expensive clothes but no tie, seldom a suit, canvas shoes.

  After a couple of weeks of brief happy meetings an envelope arrived. A ticket to Eilat and a note attached—“Meet me at the Red Sea Hotel, room 15 tomorrow night.”

  I was not a “woman of the world,” I wasn’t carefree in my actions, not even a very daring or adventurous person, and here I was, telling a lie to my mother and boss, packing an overnight bag with a flimsy nightgown and a bathing suit, wearing da
rk glasses and a straw hat, and flying to Eilat without even feeling ridiculous, just silly and happy.

  In my happy-memories drawer, the day in Eilat is a gem. No clouds, not one moment of moodiness or regret, not even an artificial “Let’s have fun and if we don’t let’s pretend.” Was it the lovemaking? The fact we both loved desert air and freedom, our lack of need for words though we talked a great deal? Mostly it was the joy of not constructing something for future references or memories but only for that same moment’s fun. We walked, we ran along the beach, we swam at night, we ate grilled fish, and the next day we took different flights to Tel-Aviv without the obvious “When shall I see you again?”

  And again and again.

  Loving Amnon was not a full-time job. I didn’t sit there waiting, I didn’t worry or think about things he might be doing when he wasn’t with me. We didn’t lay bricks in order to build something. Each meeting was a colorful transparent bubble.

  He seldom mentioned Rina; when he did it was with affection and respect. His heart could accommodate us both easily.

  A careless playboy in his social life, Amnon was very prompt and responsible whenever work or reserve-service was concerned. Business was no pleasure, but it was exciting and challenging. Though he hated chocolates or sweets, he had a sense for marketing and advertising, and he enjoyed expanding, taking risks, introducing new products and keeping a strict eye on quality. Army service every year for thirty or forty days was sacred. Once in uniform, he became almost a different person—serious, concerned, all cynicism gone. When he spoke of “my regiment,” it was with profound caring. No nostalgia for youth, just suddenly a sense of responsibility taking over.

  When he was in the service, we saw each other a great deal. He’d come for an hour very late at night; he wasn’t expected at home, and his regiment was stationed an hour’s drive away. The uniform looked right on him. The gold chain was gone and a stainless steel watch replaced the gold one. He made love as if he were facing a battle the following morning, and then talked of “his men, his tanks, his guns, his officers,” with a sense of possession. Not monopolizing, just owning gently.