Not Me Read online

  CHAPTER 17

  As they sped southward, he sucked on an unlit cigarette and considered his options. He had been pulled back into the Negev Brigade a few hours earlier, thrown into an advance unit, and given command of a small squad—five men whom he had never seen before. They were now riding in a lorry crowded with twenty or thirty Palmachniks, but silence reigned. The weather had again changed, and now the Negev was hot and dry. A khamsin was blowing up from the south, smacking against the open truck bed and pelting the soldiers’ cheeks with sand, filling their mouths and forcing them to keep their eyes squeezed shut. Those who had them tied kaffiyehs over their noses and mouths, and the others turned their faces away, but the dust found them anyway. It was impossible to smoke, which made the gloom even more complete.

  Heshel Rosenheim dug some sand out of his ears. Most of the men, he had noticed, were wearing their khaki shorts because of the heat, and now their legs were covered with red welts. He still preferred trousers as being somehow more military, though he did recall that Rommel’s Afrika Corps wore shorts. But that was different. They also had tanks. The Jews didn’t. No tanks, no artillery, no combat aircraft—virtually no heavy weapons at all. They were running down to face ten thousand Egyptians armed with several tank battalions, regiments of artillery, armored cars, many hundreds of Bren guns, innumerable mortars and rockets and fighter planes. It was ludicrous. He was just happy that some of his men had managed to get new boots. Heshel still wore his old ones, but by now they felt like he was born in them.

  Someone tried to start a song, but it was quickly choked off by the wind and sand. They continued along in silence, their eyes shut tight. Even if they could have opened them and looked up, they would not have been able to see anything, not even the sun. It was utterly obliterated. But they were not without gratitude. The clouds of dust protected them from snipers.

  It was May 15, 1948, one day after Independence. The Arab armies had already begun their invasions. From the north, the Lebanese and the Syrians. From the east, the Iraqis and the Arab Legion of Transjordan. And from the south—after first bombarding Tel Aviv the night before—the Egyptians. The situation had been made clear to Lieutenant Rosenheim when the junior officers were briefed by their commanders earlier that day. The objectives of the Egyptian army were two: to capture the Negev by driving through Bersheva to Hebron, where they would meet up with the Arab Legion, and simultaneously to advance straight up the coastal highway and take Tel Aviv in a matter of days. And what, Heshel wondered, was there to stop them? There was nothing between Gaza and Tel Aviv but a few small kibbutzim. Most of the Haganah and Palmach were defending Jerusalem. The rest would have to be diverted to fortify Tel Aviv, which was completely unprotected. If the Egyptians made a successful dash up the coast, all would be lost. It was up to the kibbutzim to hold off the Egyptians until Tel Aviv could be defended, and up to a few small units of the Negev Brigade to help them.

  It was, Heshel knew, an impossible task. And yet he found himself volunteering. He was not exactly sure why, but it did occur to him how easy it would be to surrender his squad to an overwhelming Egyptian force, after which, having been taken a prisoner of war, he could reveal his true identity and offer his not inconsiderable talents to the Arab cause. It seemed a logical course of action.

  Someone in the lorry again tried to rouse the men with song—this time it was a little fellow up forward, more protected by the cab. He managed a few lines from a tune they all knew about a young man coming upon a beautiful girl at a desert well—offering to draw water for her flock—one of those silly love songs that Heshel found so saccharine and somehow hopeless. A few of the boys tried to join in, but again the vortex of sand filled their mouths, and instead of singing, they were spitting and gagging. The wind was so loud anyway, they could barely hear the engine, and if anyone had to bark an order, it would have been too bad, because no one would hear. They probably wouldn’t even know if someone was shooting at them.

  Heshel opened his eyes for a few seconds. Utter nothingness. Behind them were clouds of dust, in front of them clouds of dust, and they were driving along as if in a dream, when you suddenly realize you are nowhere, and there is nothing, and you are alone, and around you is only the dim suggestion of some former reality, some place to land. That’s usually when you wake up and see you are in bed, and everything is really as it should be, and you are really all right.

  He snorted, blowing the sand out of his nose, and closed his eyes again.

  All the days of his life he would remember this moment, when he had stepped out of the world, and out of time, and was reborn when the wind cleared.

  But at that moment he did not know that, and all he thought to himself was: My one responsibility is to stay alive.

  Which, had he thought about it, was exactly what the inmates at Majdanek said to themselves, lying in their own excrement, dreaming of their next scrap of bread.

  At some point the truck could go no farther. The drivers had lost the road and the wheels had gotten stuck in deep sand. They pulled tarpaulins over the truck bed to make a tent, and camped within it as best they could, waiting for the wind to stop.

  They crawled out like prairie dogs, sniffing the air.

  The sky was still muddy, but the air was calm. Looking about, they could not see the road at all. They must have strayed by miles. The best they could do was head in a westerly direction until they ran into the highway. The commander cursed that they had lost a whole day. He ordered the men to push the truck out of the sand. The heat was ungodly, but it was much better to be doing something than hiding like rats under that miserable tarp. They gathered round the lorry, pushing and tugging, while others placed scraps of wood beneath the rear wheels. It was a desperate task. The lorry just sank deeper. They decided to rest the engine.

  “What’s that?” someone said.

  In the sudden silence they heard the distant grinding of another engine, and what seemed like shouting. They looked up. Those with binoculars searched the horizon.

  “Look!” one of the commanders said. “They’re stuck worse than we are!”

  It was a group of Egyptians. They had three Jeeps and a personnel carrier buried up to their headlamps, and they were running around just like the Jews had done.

  “Hey!” one of the men called out in Arabic, waving his shirt. “Need help?”

  “They can’t hear you,” someone said.

  But apparently they could see them, because just then three Bren carriers appeared on the horizon. These had no trouble negotiating the sand dunes.

  “Shit!” cried the commander. “You—set up a perimeter. The rest of you—get this fucking vehicle moving!”

  But the Bren carriers didn’t advance. They just sat there, pointing their guns at the Jews.

  “They’re afraid of us,” someone said.

  “I doubt that,” Heshel replied. “They’re just waiting for something.”

  Through his binoculars, Heshel could see the Arabs rushing about hysterically, trying to get their Jeeps moving. As he panned across to the Bren carriers, he could see an officer seated beside the gunner. He was drinking tea.

  “On the contrary. I think they are very confident, indeed,” said Lieutenant Rosenheim.

  It took a good half hour to extricate the lorry from the sand and get out of there. The poor Egyptians were still struggling, but they waved good-naturedly when the Israelis (as they now called themselves) drove off. One of Heshel’s men answered their wave with a salute of gunfire that rose harmlessly into the brown desert sky.

  They arrived at Nir Am late in the afternoon, having missed two days of the war.

  The Palmach had set up makeshift headquarters in the underground bunkers at Nir Am. Most of the men had never been in a bunker before, but Heshel had, and he knew the smell, the odd feeling of affinity one acquires with creatures like termites and moles, and the fear, almost worse than being out in the bombardment, of not knowing when the end might come, or who of your friends or l
oved ones were already without arms and legs. He knew, as well, that it would get much worse down there, that soon the stench would be unbearable and the emotions would boil over like scalded milk.

  They gathered round a table that had maps laid out upon it, and the commander explained the situation. Two kibbutzim had already been assaulted by the Egyptians—Nirim, the one closest to the Egyptian border, and a religious settlement named Kfar Darom. Both miraculously repulsed the invasion. In the case of Nirim, which faced tank assaults and heavy artillery, they triumphed with two pistols, two mortars, seven Italian rifles, two Stens and one Bren gun. Half their eighty-odd people were killed or wounded, but not as many as the Egyptians suffered. The situation was similar at Kfar Darom.

  The men cheered, but the commander remained ashen-faced. The Egyptians, he told them, were simply bypassing Nirim and Kfar Darom—wasting their time there had been sheer foolishness, he said, but good for us, since it gives us more time to prepare. The real battle would take place at Yad Mordechai, only a few miles from where they now sat cramped together in the dark of the bunker. Yad Mordechai was the key, he said, and it must be held at all costs. It sat directly in the path of the Egyptian advance. After that was only Naor and Ashdod, which was largely Arab anyway. Once taken, the road to Tel Aviv would be wide open, and then the war, and the dream of two thousand years, would most likely be over. But if Yad Mordechai could hold out, even a few days, defenses could be prepared for Tel Aviv. It would be no picnic, he told them. Not like Nirim. No, he said, the Egyptians won’t give up so easily this time.

  He asked for volunteers. Each knew what was at stake, and they all raised their hands. He made assignments, but to Heshel Rosenheim he said, “No. You’re from Naor, are you not? I’m going to send you there, you and a few men.”

  “But they may never attack Naor,” he replied.

  “So what are you worried about?” the commander said.

  Naor had changed greatly, and yet the air was the same, the dry, sweet smell coming off the desert and the vague saltiness of the not-so-distant sea. As he jumped from the car, Heshel Rosenheim saw immediately the watchtower, his watchtower, which dominated the farm, was now fortified with sandbags. Squinting, he saw the figure of a man in the tower, but it was a stranger, someone from the Haganah. He now surveyed the compound with the eyes of a soldier. Defensive posts had been established around the perimeter, basically foxholes hardened with cement and sandbags. They were not connected with trenches, as they should have been, though a few trenches had been dug closer to the center of the kibbutz. Several rows of barbed wire had been laid around the circumference of the village, reminding him more of a concentration camp than a communal farm. He was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yekkeh!”

  It was Avigdor, the sabra who used to mock him, calling him by his pet name. “It’s our little German!”

  They all came out to greet him.

  “My! How he’s changed!” they joked, tugging at his uniform.

  “What’s the Palmach coming to?” someone laughed.

  “Thank God you’re back,” added another. “The books are a mess!”

  He felt a strange happiness at seeing them. Each face held a story for him, a memory of peeling potatoes in the kitchen, or raking the barn in the early afternoon, or settling a dispute over how many times a pair of shoes can be repaired before new ones are authorized—faces he had seen through the canopy of orange branches, or across the table at dinner. And for all that, he did not really like them.

  He looked around for Moskovitz, and finally saw her, standing off, in a pair of army trousers and an incongruous pink blouse. He thought vainly, she put on the blouse for me. She was smoking a cigarette, brushing back the ringlets of her dark hair that kept escaping from a hastily tied bun. She looked heavier, ruddier than he remembered, stronger. He wanted to make his way over to her, but they were all hugging him, each one in turn, and when it seemed none was left but Moskovitz, she merely smiled, crushed her smoke, and went back inside.

  CHAPTER 18

  Even though he was not actually under Haganah authority, he accepted his assignment as commander of Post 4, a dugout on the northeast corner of the settlement in view of the experimental banana groves and the fields of alfalfa that bordered them. Above him loomed the watchtower with the kibbutz’s single Bren gun. It would be the first objective of any Egyptian advance, which meant he would be in the main line of fire—not exactly what he had hoped for. Of course, if he were the Egyptian general he wouldn’t bother with Naor. It was far off the main road, even farther than Nirim or Kfar Darom had been. Much more strategic was the hill just to the west which in fact overlooked the coastal road and was not even occupied. It was known only by number. He might have suggested this to the Haganah commander—why tempt them with Naor? Put a garrison on the hill and let them fight it out there. But he kept silent.

  His squad had brought some weapons with them. Several Sten guns, a mortar, a bag full of antitank mines. One of his men, Dovid, was a sapper, and the two of them walked together, smoking cigarettes and laying the mines. They had gotten to know each other a little, and Heshel liked him. He was from Provence, but had been secreted over the Pyrenees during the war and raised quietly by Spanish nuns. Even though he was now only seventeen, Heshel felt they might be able to talk to each other, if for no other reason than they had both eaten pork.

  “They’ll come from there,” Heshel said to him in French, pointing to the line between the banana trees and the alfalfa, which was still low to the ground.

  Dovid indicated a pattern with his hand, and Heshel nodded, and they began to stroll along, stopping now and then to bury a mine and carefully mark its location on a map. It was a useless occupation—if the Egyptians did bother to attack, these few mines could never stop them from breaking through.

  “Save some for the flanks,” he said anyway.

  “You seem melancholy,” said the sapper.

  “Don’t I always?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Heshel laughed at this.

  “But why?” asked the boy. “Here we are in our own land, doing the most important thing. Not sitting in some apartment somewhere drinking tea and complaining about the weather. What could be a better life than this?”

  “I don’t know, Dovid,” he said. “Perhaps being home with a cup of tea would not be such a bad thing.”

  “For someone your age, I guess.”

  “I’m only twenty-seven,” said Heshel.

  “A Jew can’t sit at home anymore!” exclaimed the boy. “That would be the worst thing I can imagine—to have all this happening and not be a part of it. You would miss everything! And think of the millions who died so that this day might be possible. And think of how they died, Lieutenant. Walking like sheep right into the ovens. Digging their own graves and waiting for someone to shoot them in the back of their heads.”

  “Yes, yes,” Heshel said. “I remember.”

  “I guess the world just can’t forgive us for introducing them to God!”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “It’s true. No matter what we do or what we say, they find a reason to hate us. We bring them the word of God, so they conclude that we’re the devil. Can you explain that?”

  An ancient voice rose up in Heshel Rosenheim. It’s the way you separate yourselves from everyone! it said. The way you think you’re better! The way you cheat the Gentiles! And how you lust after money! It’s your greed and lust! It’s your need to control!

  Angrily, he looked into Dovid’s eyes. They were gentle even for all the fire of his young words. Heshel turned away. He saw his men feverishly digging trenches in the pitch of night, and spotted in the distance the lanterns of a small group of women braving the banana fields to thin the new sprouts so at least some might grow and prosper in spite of the tanks and firebombs; and he turned at the sound of two boys laughing as they lugged huge milk cans filled with water into the dining hall, as if that flimsy structur
e might withstand even one round of artillery.

  “No,” said Heshel, “I cannot explain it.”

  “That’s why, for me, this is the happiest time of my life.”

  Heshel handed the boy another mine.

  “I’m glad,” he said. “Put this one over there.”

  With all his heart he still wanted to get away. Yet he remained steadfast and precise with his work. He laid the mines as carefully as he could—to protect as best he might these foolish creatures whom God had abandoned to the likes of him.

  Moskovitz was obviously trying to avoid him. She did not venture out to Post 4, nor sit near Heshel Rosenheim at dinner, nor join any group of soldiers where she might find him. She was working in the children’s house, and she slept with them in the shelter. In those days, they still came out to play for a while in the daylight. They played rounds of football or volleyball, and the little ones had the sandbox and swings. Heshel somehow found himself wandering over to the playground. But he stood back, looking on as she watched over them. There were two or three infants there as well, in strollers or bassinets. Sometimes he saw her holding one or another of them. She seemed so natural with them. He desperately wanted to speak with her, but did not dare. He waited, and hoped, but for what he did not actually know.

  He said to the commander, “Why are they here? Shouldn’t the women and children be evacuated?”

  “Bad for morale,” was the reply.

  “Ridiculous.”

  “Yes, but those are the orders. Anyway,” he added, “it’s what the women want.”

  He decided he would not speak to her unless she spoke to him.

  In the meantime word arrived that, to the south, Yad Mordechai was under attack. Those on Naor redoubled their efforts, building more shelters, digging more trenches. During the night they somehow erected a pillbox at Post 2. There was a Haganah radio on the kibbutz, but it did not always work, and news from headquarters or Yad Mordechai came intermittently, broken by hours of silence. In bits and pieces they learned that Yad Mordechai had sustained some four thousand bombs from Egyptian planes and heavy artillery in the first three hours of battle alone. There was not a building left standing. Then leaflets were dropped calling upon the kibbutzniks to surrender. But of course they didn’t, so the shelling began again, even more intensely, and then suddenly there was silence—for the infantry had finally advanced.