No Time for Tears (26 page)

Gradually his strength returned.

As they walked in the vineyard, Dovid stopped and looked at his wife. “I’ve missed you so badly, Chavala. The world, the war … they’ll have to wait. Tomorrow we go away for a few days.”

“
Yes
, Dovid, but are you well enough to travel?”

“With you … you should forgive the flowery language … to the ends of the earth. Far enough?”

The next morning Dovid helped Chavala into the black carriage, took up the reins and they rode high up into the hills of Haifa.

The Moorish inn Dovid had chosen had once housed the harem of an Arab prince, but was now owned by a Sephardic Jew. Royalty to royalty, Dovid thought, and smiled to himself.

Chavala had no sooner stepped over the threshold than the place evoked visions of twirling dancing girls. Shutting her eyes, she could almost hear the tinkling sounds of the small gold bells they wore around their ankles as their exotic eyes peered out above the transparent veils.

From the balcony of their rooms they could see the golden dome of the Bahai shrine and the magnificent gardens that surrounded it. Beyond lay the breathtaking view of the city and its harbor, across which was the bay and the old city of Acre and the mountains of Galilee. Mount Hermon rose majestically with its snowcapped crown.

And then they lay down in the canopied bed, and exchanged the joyous release of their love and gratitude. They lay together, as one, in a kind of sweet exaltation … Afterward they still clung to one another, each wishing that they could shut out the world forever. That this moment would be the rest of their lives…

“Dovid, I wish there were no war, that we could go back to the way it was—but I know, that’s foolish …”

Of course he longed for the same things that she did, but to dwell on them now would only make things more painful when this idyll had to end. “We must take our pleasure where we can, Chavala … one day this will be over … and you and I and Reuven…”

Hard as she’d tried not to dwell on the day she left little Reuven and Chia with Raizel, it was impossible not to hear her son’s voice once again saying … “Take me with you to see
abba,
please …” but how could she do that? When Sarah had come to Jerusalem to bring her back to Zichron she was all too aware that she might not even see Dovid alive again. She wanted to spare their son that cruel disappointment … Once again she could hear Sarah’s words … “Absalom and Dovid are in prison and might—” Chavala refused to recall the rest. Quickly she turned her body toward her husband and gave herself to him as deeply, as fully as she knew how….

Chavala knew it would be a very long time until they could know such enchantment again. The four fleeting days had spent themselves, and now Dovid was taking Chavala back to Jerusalem.

When they arrived at their home Dovid found Reuven quietly reading. This was
his
child, and while little Chia especially and the others were terribly close to him, Reuven was different. He was of his flesh and Chavala’s. In the war-torn world that he moved in, this was a central, unifying fact for his life. Above all else it made his life seem important, justified going through anything to survive.

When the boy saw him, he didn’t immediately run to him, arms outstretched. The boy, understandably, was shy, as though uncertain whether this still-gaunt man was really his father. And, Dovid thought, in a way he was quite right … he was not the same man who had left Jerusalem. Nobody went through the imminence of death twice, never mind the ravages to the body, and came out the same person. God, was there a scent of death around him now? Did it walk with him? He hoped not, hoped, instead, that it was more an aura of survival, a will to survive and outlast all the death that the Turks and Germans could try to inflict. After all, they were only the latest in a long line that had tried to extinguish the Jews from the earth. Nobody had quite managed yet. Dovid meant to try very hard to keep up their record of flawed success.

He went slowly up to the boy, just stood there a moment, then reached down and tousled his hair. And then, only then, did the boy get up, and slowly, tentatively and then like he was gripping life itself, put his arms around his father’s waist and squeezed very hard. “I’m glad to see you,
abba.
I was worried.
Ema
went off so suddenly—”

“I know, I know, Reuven. Well, you see, the worry was for nothing. Here I am and here she is, and now we’ll have a wonderful time together and talk and play and pretty soon we’ll all be together again and I won’t have to go away…”

There were tears in the boy’s eyes as he tried to act older than he felt, to be manly. He understood well enough that his father might never come back when he left again, understood better than his parents could know. So for the rest of that day and the next they
lived
together as if they had never been apart, as if they would never again need to separate. Each knew the truth, each, including Reuven, played his role. And when Dovid had to leave, to face them both, the tears did not flow. The love they shared was their bond, their very special hold on life, and each would make the most of it not only for himself but for the others…

When Dovid returned to Zichron, Aaron’s caretaker told him that he was to go to Athlit.

The lights burned dim beyond the windows of Aaron’s laboratory. Quickly Dovid mounted the stairs and found Aaron sitting at the long table with Absalom, Sarah, and the rest of the men of NILI.

Aaron’s face was drawn, his eyes could not conceal his anxiety. “Dovid … I’m glad you’re back. Sit down.”

Dovid joined the rest.

Aaron began: “The contact has been broken. No signals, nothing. We have no way of knowing why.” He pounded the table with his fist “And here we wait, night after night. With maps and plans and vital information hidden away in a vault beneath the floor. With all we’ve amassed, the British could have been close to Damascus by now.”

“I’ll go, Aaron,” Absalom said quickly.

“No, we can’t risk you being arrested again. I have other plans for you.”

“I know that I could make it, Aaron. There is an old Arab who has a fishing boat, I’ve spoken to him and he’s willing. I could swim out beyond the rocks at Caesarea, where he would pick me up—”

“Remember the last time we tried that. Joseph Lieberman was never heard from again. With all respect to Joseph, your work here is too valuable to risk. The tides are unpredictable. No, there is only one option …I must get to Alexandria myself.”

Dovid said, “Your absence, as you know, would cause suspicion. The whole Yishuv would be in danger, Hashomer would be down on us. Besides, how would
you
get there?”

“There’s a scientific meeting in Berlin. With Jamal Pasha’s lust for production, I should have little problem convincing him of the importance of my being sent to Berlin.”

“Then what? How does that get you to Egypt?” Absalom put in.

“I’m
getting
to that.” Absalom was always in such a big hurry. “From Berlin I’ll attend a scientific conference in Vienna. Then, somehow, I’ll find a way to get to England.”

Sarah seemed puzzled. “Why London, Aaron? Wouldn’t it be possible, if you do make a connection, to go on directly to Alexandria?”

“It’s my feeling that my best chance of getting to Alexandria is with the British … on one of their ships. Well, at least it should be safer than a rowboat … or trying to disguise myself as an Arab. I’ve neither the taste nor talent for that … While I’m gone you, Sarah, Dovid and Absalom, will be in command. And of course all of you will continue on as though I were still here. Nothing will be changed in my absence.”

I
N BERLIN AARON BECAME
reacquainted with an American scientist who had been sent under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Since he had worked with Jerome Harris years back on a sponsoring committee, Aaron felt he had an ally. But how to approach Harris and enlist his help was another matter.

That evening Jerome Harris dined as Aaron Aaronson’s guest at the finest restaurant in Berlin.

After a bottle of Rhine wine, which Aaron detested, Aaron explained the importance of his getting to London. Harris was not overly inquisitive; he felt the desire to help his fellow scientist. Besides, he liked this
landsman
from another culture.

He slipped Aaron into his own stateroom aboard the ship returning him to America.

Once aboard, it was not difficult to get off a cable, with Harris’s help, to London.

With the British now alerted, the American vessel was halted on the pretext of a routine inspection. In the process Aaronson was taken off and delivered to London.

In London he was taken to intelligence headquarters, where he proceeded to offer all the information about the work that had been done behind Turkish lines.

The British, impressed, wasted no time in sending him to Alexandria.

Aaron had been gone since July. It was now September. Waiting, worrying was nerve-wracking for those left behind at Athlit. Further, as Aaron had told them, they’d kept up their espionage activities and escalated them, so that the men were exhausted.

Sarah said to Dovid and Absalom, “Do you think perhaps we should give the men a little break?”

“Obviously the coast will still have to be watched for any signals, but I agree,” Dovid said. As did Absalom.

Dovid was especially grateful for the lull. It was an opportunity to see Chavala and his son, whom he hadn’t seen for so long.

As Dovid rode up into the hills toward Jerusalem a shocking thought occurred to him. In a sense … well, he hadn’t missed her … There just was so little time to be lonely … it had nothing to do with his loving Chavala as always, but the intense preoccupation with his activities was so all-consuming that emergency squeezed out memory. One needed all one’s thoughts on the job of the moment … or one didn’t have an opportunity for
any
further thought—or breath.

Still, he had a vague sense of guilt about it, and could only hope that Chavala understood the long lapses in communication. She had to …

But, in spite of trying, Chavala did not really understand. Or at least could not really accept. With all of Dovid’s apparent ability to roam about the country, he seemed to avoid coming to Jerusalem. He even seemed to have forgotten those four glorious days they had spent together in the hills of Haifa. Chavala remembered every touch, every kiss, every whispered word. Did Dovid … ? The long letters she’d received at the beginning of their separation had, if she received anything, become brief notes …”I hope you’re no longer so lonely” … “It makes my job so much easier knowing you have Raizel with you, and kiss little Chia for me” … “I’ll bring Reuven some new seeds” … “Stay well”…

But Chavala’s life, unlike Dovid’s, was lived in a void. The nights were the worst. Her nightmares had become so frequent that she awoke in the middle of the night drenched in perspiration. In those awful dreams she saw Dovid …and sometimes Moishe … dead. It took her days to recover and blot out the sight of blood…. If it weren’t for the children and Raizel she thought she would have gone out of her mind.

And now she could no longer have the comfort of her sister. At least this loss was a bittersweet one. Raizel had met a young Chasid who lived in Mea Shearim. It was not exactly a marriage to make Chavala overjoyed, although she liked the young man. He was kind and gentle, with a sweet shyness. No wonder Raizel had fallen so in love with him. Her objection … and she knew it was selfish … was that for the rest of Raizel’s life she would live in Mea Shearim and in the worst kind of poverty. Still, who was she to try and persuade her sister? Raizel required so little. Their love would sustain them. But when Chavala saw Raizel and Lazarus Ben-Yehudah joined together, even in that solemn moment she vowed that somehow, someway, she would help bring her sister out of this poverty…

They had married only three days ago, and already the longing for Raizel was more than painful. In her aloneness Chavala occupied a dim, shadowy world. Her thoughts, turned in on themselves, vacillated between love and hate, anger and guilt. She no longer even knew how she felt about Dovid. If only he would confide in her. At least she wouldn’t feel this sense of … of abandonment. Her resentments, in spite of herself, built to such heights that she wondered if she would even be able to face him. And such feelings made her ashamed at the same time.

When Dovid arrived she did not greet him as before. They had seen each other, briefly, only three times during eight months of their separation.

This time they went through the act of love almost mechanically. She tried, but she simply couldn’t respond to him the way she had the last time.

As they lay side-by-side, Chavala could no longer hold back the hurt, especially when Dovid said, “Sarah sends her love…”

Chavala got out of bed and looked out the window to the dismal alley beyond. “Why is Sarah still in Zichron? Is she any less in danger than I would have been?”

Dovid winced. How could he tell her that, especially in Aaron’s absence, Sarah was a crucially important person at Athlit?… “Well, she doesn’t have children—”

“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why is she in less danger than I would have been?”

“I can’t answer that, Chavala. I can’t speak for the Aaronsons. It’s
my
family that I want to protect.”

She looked closely at Dovid, doubts invading her thoughts … Terrible, impossible doubts. But were they really? Dovid
was
a handsome man, and Sarah a beautiful woman … She knew Absalom was not always there, and without Dovid realizing it, could it be he was more drawn to Sarah than he even realized? And could it be that Sarah in her loneliness was perhaps reaching out to him?

“Dovid … please be honest with me. This will sound strange but… well, do you still love me?”

Dovid looked at her, dumbfounded. “Do I still love you? Good God, how can you ask that? Chavala, there’s a war, and we’re not the only ones that are separated—”

“I know that, Dovid, but I wonder … I can’t help it… if there’s more to this than you’ve told me. I mean, Sarah being allowed to stay at Zichron and not me—”