Pursuit (41 page)

“Shhhh!” he said gently, and looked down in wonder at his son.

Chapter 7

The war with Egypt ended five days after the relief of Ein Tsofar and six days after the birth of Herzl Daniel Grossman, on January 7, with a cease-fire agreement that led a week later to the start of serious armistice talks, which in turn led on the twenty-fourth of February to a completed Armistice Agreement with Egypt. Operation Horev had been an outstanding success.

With Egypt effectively out of the war, the action against the balance of Israel's enemies became largely diplomatic, and Benjamin Grossman—Captain Benjamin Grossman, now—was not in his proper element as a diplomat. Fighting was his specialty, his love, but at least he now knew what his career would be. He would remain in the army. Someone had to, and he was as qualified as any. He was also convinced, as were most, that the war would go on for a long time. After all, there had been no peace settlements to end hostilities, only armistices until peace would someday come, and that day was nowhere in sight.

The final Armistice Agreement was signed with Jordan on March 4 after a month's negotiation; with Lebanon on March 23; and the final agreement was concluded with Syria on July 20.

The Preamble of the Armistice Agreements stated “… that the Agreements were concluded in order to facilitate the transition from the present truce to permanent peace.” Article 1 stated that “… no aggressive actions by the armed forces—land, sea, or air—of either party shall be undertaken, planned, or threatened against the people or armed forces of the other.” Article 2 stated that “… no warlike act or hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one of the Parties against the other Party.”

Everyone knew as the agreements were being signed that the war would go on. The armistices were meant to give time to regroup, rearm, replan. And Benjamin Grossman intended to be part of that replanning. After all, he now had to plan, not just for himself, but for his family.

Herzl Daniel Grossman was everything a father could have hoped for. He was handsome, bright, and healthy. At times Benjamin Grossman regretted that his son could not have been raised with the advantages he had enjoyed on the sweeping estates in Angermünde, of being trained in the Junker tradition to sustain him through life. But he had to admit that in those many absences of his occasioned by his increasingly important position in the Israeli Army, Deborah was doing an exceptional job of raising their child, even though she maintained her job as head nurse at the Magen David Adom. True, she was raising him to a full appreciation of his responsibilities as a dedicated Sabra, but this no longer meant very much to Benjamin Grossman. The important thing was that Herzl was growing up a happy child; thinking back, Benjamin Grossman could not recall having been very happy as a child, even with the estates and the stables and even with the Junker tradition.

In appearance, the boy was remarkably as Ben had been as a child. He had slate-blue eyes, a wide forehead beneath unruly sandy hair, an almost perfectly chiseled profile. He had a quick mind, and from his mother he had inherited a certain steadiness, a dedication to the integrity of his own convictions. A few of his teachers in school called it stubbornness, but it was actually more a refusal to concede when he felt he was right. He was, in short, everything Grossman was sure he would have been himself had he had a father to appreciate him, love him, raise him and direct him as Herzl had been appreciated, loved, raised and directed. It compensated to a large extent for the fact that Deborah could not have any more children; the difficult delivery in the darkened Ein Tsofar cave had seen to that.

Although there were increasingly constant demands upon Colonel Grossman's time by his increasingly important position in the armed forces, he still made special efforts to get home to Tel Aviv as often as possible. And when he was home he spent almost all of his time with his son. Herzl, growing up, was a very popular boy, but he also took time from his own activities whenever his father was available to spend with a parent he respected and adored. Herzl was a lucky boy, and unlike many lucky boys, was wise enough to know it.

When Ben Grossman was home, and occasionally when he was not, Max Brodsky would drop over to have a drink, to share dinner, or simply to pass the time. Following the war, Brodsky had also decided to remain in the defense establishment, returning to Mossad, which handled intelligence and security matters, and in the years since had risen to the position of colonel. He was now assistant to the head of section, and it was predicted in the army that in time he was sure to head the section.

Max Brodsky had never married—a subject often brought up by Deborah in their many meetings, since Deborah had come to believe in the necessity of marriage for happiness—and being alone Max was free to enjoy his friendships where he found them, and the Grossman family were very close to him in many ways.

None of them lived luxuriously; the State of Israel had little money to waste on extravagant salaries either for its soldiers or for its security or intelligence personnel. Still, Max Brodsky and the Grossman family lived comfortably enough in apartments only several blocks apart in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, a little farther from the beaches Herzl liked so much than he would have preferred, but otherwise they were all quite happy there. But money, Grossman often thought on reflection, was certainly not vital to happiness. They lived contentedly; he enjoyed his work and loved his family, and the same was true of Deborah. Life before he had come to Israel—actually, before he had been forced against his will to come to Palestine, as he often smilingly admitted in Brodsky's presence—had faded from his mind completely. He wondered to himself many times why he had set such a high value on that money in Switzerland. With it, where would he be? Wherever it might have been, it would have been without his family, without Herzl, and without Deborah, which would have been unthinkable.

He and Brodsky would often sit on the small porch of the apartment, enjoying the breeze, sipping brandy, watching the neighborhood children shouting and screaming in the street below, and speak of many things. They spoke of the vital necessity to improve the army, to organize the reserves more efficiently, to develop more sophisticated weaponry both offensive and defensive; and little Herzl, forgoing the games in the street, would sit and listen, excited to be in the presence of two men whose influence upon his country's future—his mother continually assured him—was so important. He was proud to be the son of one and the good friend, the adopted nephew so to speak, of the other.

But the times spent with his father and his Uncle Max were not always confined to serious discussion. The two men would take Herzl with them when they went to Morris Wolf's restaurant in the southern sector of Tel Aviv not far from Yafo, and sit for hours, with Wolf telling them of the odd and humorous things that can happen in the life of a German-refugee restaurateur in a Yemenite neighborhood; or they would go on picnics at the beach, and Brodsky would point out the exact spot where the
Ruth
had landed them, and tell Herzl how his father had saved them all that night by shooting out the radar scope and the floodlight on the British gunboat, and go on to tell him how his father had been picked up that night with a gun in his hands and had been sentenced to death by the British, only to be rescued and sent to Ein Tsofar, where he had met Herzl's mother.

Ben Grossman would laugh.

“You make it sound very romantic, very heroic. I was simply stupid, that's all. I spoke no Hebrew then, nor English, and I had no idea of what was happening or what anyone was talking about. My biggest concern when the British took me in that night, believe it or not, was that they were taking my passport away from me and I knew I would never get it back. It was a forged passport, of course, supposedly a Venezuelan one—and I couldn't speak Spanish, either.” He would laugh at the memory. “How's that for being heroic?”

Or Herzl would take the opportunity at times when his Uncle Max was around—for he knew his Uncle Max's presence would elicit reminiscences from his father when nothing else could—to ask his father about stories of the war of 1948, or the Sinai campaign of 1956 that had ended a few years before. Major Benjamin Grossman had been one of those responsible for the planning of that campaign, which had turned out so brilliantly from a military standpoint, and so disastrously from a diplomatic one. But on the subject of war, Grossman would put the boy off with a smile.

“War is just a job,” he would say to the eleven-year-old Herzl. “Just another job. It's neither particularly noble nor particularly demeaning. It's just something that, unfortunately, has to be done from time to time if you and I and your mother are to survive. And survival is what is important, not war.”

“It's just a job,” Brodsky would say, “except you do the job exceptionally well. And you also seem to enjoy the job.”

Grossman would shrug deprecatingly.

“One should always do a job he enjoys, or at least try to enjoy whatever job he has to do. As for doing it well, with enough practice one has to improve.” He would smile at his son and put his hand on the boy's head affectionately. “When you're a famous surgeon, Herzl, you won't need as much practice saving lives as I have, sadly, taking them.”

Then there was the time both Brodsky and Grossman decided they needed more exercise; they were middle-aged men now and spent too much time sitting at desks. They decided that tennis was the best sport suited to their age, and that it would also be a good sport for thirteen-year-old Herzl to learn. One day Herzl sat on the side lines while his father and Uncle Max played. When the two men were finished and came to sit beside the boy, wiping the sweat from their faces, Herzl frowned at his father.

“Dad, were you ever wounded in the war?”

“Wounded in the war? No, why?”

“I don't know. It's just—well, when you serve the ball you serve it sort of underhand, like a girl. I know something's wrong with your arm, you never lift it up high, like Uncle Max or me. That's why I wondered if you were wounded in the war.”

Grossman laughed delightedly.

“Herzl, Herzl! You and your Uncle Max insist on making your father out to be a big hero. The truth is, I fell out of a tree when I was a little boy, about six or seven, a tree I ‘shouldn't have been up in in the first place. I broke my arm—my shoulder, actually—and the doctor who set it didn't do a very good job.” He ruffled the boy's hair and then leaned over to kiss him on the forehead. “And that's why your heroic father can't raise his arm too high.”

When Herzl Grossman was fifteen years old, he was seduced by a friend of the family, a widow of thirty-eight named Rifkah Zimmerman. Rifkah Zimmerman's husband had been killed in the Sinai, and as the years went by she found herself more and more missing the passionate nights they had enjoyed. Mrs. Zimmerman began noticing the son of her old friend, Deborah Grossman. As she watched Herzl grow older and larger she often found herself, at first unwillingly, and then purposely, erotically picturing the sexual education of the boy and her own enjoyment at providing it. She would tell herself she was ridiculous, a sick woman; but that did not stop the fantasizing. She could not, however, think of a proper excuse to get Herzl alone at her home, and so she filed the desire, along with all the many other unfulfilled wishes, and went about her life.

But then Herzl began delivering groceries for the neighborhood store, and Mrs. Zimmerman always ordered her groceries from this store by telephone. Rifkah worked and had little time for shopping, preferring to use her one day off doing housework or resting. This particular afternoon, when the bell rang, she had just finished her bath and was dressed in a dressing gown. She went to answer the door and then felt a sudden flush as she saw Herzl there. She swung the door wide to allow him passage with the large carton he carried, leaning forward a bit as she held it open so that his arm brushed one of her full breasts.

“Herzl! Come in. When did you start delivering?”

“Just this week,” Herzl said, and turned to leave, his arm tingling from the unexpected and exciting softness it had encountered. He had also pictured being alone with Mrs. Zimmerman; he was at an age when his thoughts were predominantly on being alone with many women and girls. But like Rifkah Zimmerman, he knew it was an impossible dream. He also knew he was too nervous with girls to do anything about any of his dreams.

“Wait,” she said hurriedly, trying to form a scenario on short notice, not wishing to lose a rare opportunity. “Have a cold glass of tea, or a soda. Sit, sit. You don't have to run, do you?” She thought for a moment of inquiring about his parents, but then felt it would be a mistake to bring in her contemporaries at this point.

“No,” Herzl said, surprised at the invitation, but still convinced it had to only be friendly hospitality, because what else could it be? Anything else could only be another dream to add to his frustrations at night in bed, when he knew he would recall the incident and embellish it in his imagination. “No, this is my last delivery.”

“Good! Then sit, sit. Tea? Or soda?”

Herzl sat and thought considering the choice, but his mind was not on it. He tried not to stare at the bulge where Rifkah's fine breasts strained against the smooth cloth of the dressing gown, aware of his growing erection, and also aware that the dressing gown allowed a glimpse of a dimpled knee as it gaped every now and then. Rifkah looked at him coyly, gaining confidence.

“It's such a hard choice, tea or soda? Your mind is on something else? What is it? Your girl friend?”

Herzl blushed. “I—I don't have a girl friend …”

Rifkah stared at him in pretended disbelief. “What? No girl friend? A handsome, good-looking, big boy like you?” She shook her head, the movement dislodging the dressing gown a trifle more. “You must be joking! I bet the girls are all over you. I bet they can't keep their hands off you.”