The Empire of the Senses (62 page)

Geza hovered on the outskirts of their embrace before stating rather formally, “We should collect our things.”

Vicki let go of him, her lips pursed. He could tell she was trying not to cry, and he yearned to hold her a little longer.

People started boarding. Geza and Vicki stood there restlessly, wondering if they should get on too. “I don’t want to be late,” Vicki said, glancing around at the other families lining up.

“What difference does it make? The berths are reserved. In a few weeks, you’ll be wishing you could jump off that ship.”

Vicki smiled, but the way she fidgeted with her gloves and gazed with longing at the steamer betrayed her—she couldn’t wait to leave him behind. It was so characteristic of youth, to rush into the future as if one’s present circumstances proved anachronistic to the point of embarrassment. A luxury, really, for life to feel so suddenly intolerable you could immediately alter it, whereas Lev, in middle age, tolerated a great deal, maybe too much, for the sake of constancy and calm. And yet the question burned within him: how much longer until he could leave for New York, now that he was delayed by a slow-healing wound, a son in trouble, a maze of legal questions, a hysterical wife?

The fog cleared. Lev winced at the sharp sun breaking through the clouds, his eyes watering. The sun’s glare blurred the image of Vicki adjusting her hat. He blotted his eyes with a handkerchief and took a deep breath. Voices in the distance yelled,
Vicki! Geza!

Maya and Zev ran toward them, breathless, full of apologies: their car had broken down, and at the last minute, they caught a train; they never thought they would make it but here they were. “I left the car in the middle of the road,” Zev said triumphantly. “Whoever finds it can have the lemon.”

“Thank God,” Geza said, embracing Zev.

Vicki hugged Maya, and after a suspended breath, Maya asked, “Tell me honestly, am I wearing too much powder?”

Vicki’s eyes pooled with tears. “You look beautiful.”

The line of passengers waiting to board had diminished. From the railing of the ship, people waved scarfs and hats at those who’d been left behind. A fat grandmother wailed on the dock, her massive arms shaking. An older man, her husband, comforted her, which only agitated her further. A sister cried for her departed sisters; they promised to send for her once they settled in Gedera.

Suddenly, there wasn’t any more time. Vicki and Geza embraced him. Maya and Zev argued about which satchel contained the dry bread and smoked fish. Geza said the tickets were in his inner vest pocket, and Vicki added, “We’ll be the last ones to board if we don’t hurry!” “Let’s go!” Zev roared, and in a whirl of kisses and mazel tovs, after one last embrace from his daughter, they left him standing on the dock.

They disappeared into the ship. Lev couldn’t bear to stand there and wait for them to emerge onto the deck and wave. He couldn’t bear to wave back and watch the ship float down the Elbe until it grew smaller and smaller.

The fat grandmother stared at him. She was crying and sweating, her face a porous mass of regret. Her husband, his back stooped over in what seemed to be his permanent position, smoked a cigar. Lev tipped his hat at her and started to walk away, over the floating pontoon that connected the dock to land. Even as he crossed the bridge, the lapping shores of the Elbe at his back, he could still hear her indignant cries from far off, the cries of an old, bitter woman who believed everything she loved was on that ship.

49

Together on the deck of the
Mauretania
, their bodies pressed up against other bodies, all of them strained to see Haifa Bay. The deck railing dug into her stomach as Vicki tried to get a better view. She leaned so far forward that if she wanted to, she could easily have pitched herself into the crystalline waters. But Geza held on to her. Maya’s damp arm pressed into hers, and she could feel the rise and fall of Zev’s powerful breath as he too took the measure of this place called Palestine.

They were exhausted, with dark shadows under their eyes and dirty hair that smelled faintly of fish. They had not washed their clothing in weeks. Her skin felt tight with dryness. The air here carried no moisture compared to the humid summer air of Berlin. But they had survived the trip, she reminded herself, gazing up at the sky, saturated with such an intense blue that her eyes stung. Little white egrets flew overhead, squawking with relish.

Geza squeezed her sweaty hand in his. “Look,” he said, pointing to the coastline. The view of the city from the sea: cerulean sky, gold sand, white houses gleaming on the hillside perched above the port. As they approached the harbor, illustrious ships lay anchored in the roadstead between Acre and the foot of Mount Carmel. Along the curve of the shore, purple flowers swayed in the wind. Palm trees were scattered across the hills. All the way from Acre to Mount Carmel stretched a green luxuriant park, which appeared to run on forever.

There was no more complaining, as there had been for weeks on end, about the swarms of anopheles mosquitoes that carried disease, about the earthquake last July near the Dead Sea, or about how Tel Aviv was a brash and bourgeois city built on sand, no different from the
capitalistic cities of Europe. When Geza and Vicki protested, explaining they were not going to Tel Aviv, the other passengers shook their heads and said eventually that’s where the exiles from Europe always ended up. “It’s too tough for them on the kibbutz,” they added. “Too lonely even though you are always surrounded by people.” And then a rabid argument would break out, between Zev, who proclaimed it was one’s national duty to work the land, and a man wearing a three-piece suit, who only wanted to find office work in either Tel Aviv or possibly Jerusalem, where he had relatives.

As the ship floated into the harbor, there was no more energy left for such febrile disagreements. The whizzing sound of the anchor plummeting into the water sent a tremor through the crowd. Vicki stared at Geza, gripping his hand, and he smiled back at her. It was the smile he reserved for the most tense and worrisome moments. They saw Arab sailors pushing lighters out into the water from the shore; these barges would transfer them from the moored ship onto land.

From the ship to the lighters, the sailors handled them as if they were discarded packages they would rather dump into the ocean. But even after the long, arduous journey, floating in this barge steered by hostile hosts, there was no misery, only joy when they saw the cliffs of Mount Carmel and the purple-blue mountains of Galilee. Some of the passengers spontaneously started singing Yiddish folk songs from the old country, about returning to Jerusalem, even though this was Haifa.

Gripping the sides of the rocking lighter, she thought of her father. By the time they had reached the deck, he had vanished. She had called out his name, but the drone of the great ship departing the harbor drowned out her voice. The only person who seemed to hear her cries was the grandmother quivering on the dock. That grandmother wailed not only for her departed children and grandchildren but for everyone on that ship. And everyone on that ship had felt a communal sense of guilt for leaving behind a grandmother, whether living or dead, in the Ukraine or in Berlin. When they reached the open sea, people passed around a bottle of vodka, and it was one of those times when drinking with strangers was a blessing.

At the port in Haifa, masses of people strained behind a barbed wire fence, desperate for news from home. The British policemen used their sticks and camel-hide whips to hold back the crowd. Vicki clung to Geza. They were waiting for Maya and Zev, who were on the next lighter.

Geza told her they would go to the bathhouse, where they would be separated for a short time during the physical examination, after which they would be taken to the disinfection facilities to receive shots for typhus and smallpox.

“Don’t leave me,” Vicki cried.

He calmly reminded her of what they had discussed on the ship, about the entry procedures. A policeman blew a whistle. The crowd quieted for a moment.

“It’s all right,” he said, wiping a smudge of dirt off her chin.

To get to Beit Alfa, in the middle of the Jezreel Valley, they took a bus. Geza, Maya, and Zev were relieved and filled with euphoria that they had passed the entry procedures smoothly, even after their belongings had been searched, their skin pricked with needles, their naked bodies examined. Vicki wondered how they were immune to the worries that consumed her: How long would it take to reach Beit Alfa on this bus? When would she get to wash some clothing? Where would they sleep? Her feet itched and she desperately wanted a shower. But I mustn’t say this, she thought, swallowing hard.

Passing through Haifa, she noticed all the construction. Skeletal scaffolding shrouded buildings, soft-drink stands with the sign
Gazoz
stood on every corner. A woman sitting in the next row pointed out that they were passing through Hadar Hacarmel, a neighborhood where lots of Jewish immigrants lived. Vicki took in the bustling shops, the coffeehouses where women sat outside drinking from elegant saucers, fanning themselves. There was even a cinema—her heart leapt at the sight of the marquee rimmed with unlit bulbs.

Behind them, Zev and Maya chatted with a pioneer who had arrived six years ago. He spoke about how, to Europeans, Palestine was
all romance, and people who liked romance should stay home. “The instant they arrive here, such misty dreams evaporate and what’s left is a rough and rocky place, a hard life, unsuitable for the fainthearted.” He raised his fist and shook it. “We need soldiers, not frail refugees. Better not come at all than come only to run back home.”

Geza patted Vicki’s knee. She managed to smile, and he grinned as if none of this mattered, what others said. She stared at the passing acacia trees. Through the open windows, the air felt bone dry. The pioneer droned on, saying that there would always be a war against the Arabs and the English, against the cold nights and the desert heat, the immovable rocks and the innumerable grains of sand, a war that could last for thousands of years.

Geza whispered into Vicki’s ear, “He certainly loves the sound of his own voice.”

Vicki squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back in three short bursts, which meant:
Don’t worry; I love you; it will be all right
. The scent of eucalyptus trees and citrus groves filtered into the bus, and she inhaled these sharp clean smells, smells that were new to her.

Beit Alfa, the kibbutz where they were going to live, was still off in the distance, nestled against the Gilboa Mountains. There, while plowing the fields, the pioneers had uncovered the mosaic floor of an ancient synagogue illustrating the lunar Hebrew months—a sign, Zev said, that Beit Alfa was a good and blessed place.

They passed an Arab village with fields full of rocks. Vicki and Geza stared at the Arab children, who stood in front of ramshackle houses. The children stared back.

Sitting nearby on the bus, an older man in oriental dress wearing a tarboosh and smoking a
beedi
coughed hoarsely.

He must be an Arab, Vicki thought, and she self-consciously averted her eyes from the passing village.

The man coughed again and then asked if they had recently arrived in Palestine.

“Yes,” Geza said solemnly. “This morning. Via Berlin.”

The man said he had been living in Palestine for thirty-five years.
Originally, he was a Jew from L’vov, but now he had a big house in Tel Aviv and traded in cotton wool. He had just returned from a business trip to Beirut and was on his way to visit his sister in Safed. He owned a factory called Lodzia that produced cotton socks, which he informed them were quite popular, despite the heat. “People wear the socks under their sandals. They don’t like their toes getting dirty. Strange, but I’m not complaining.” Vicki and Geza nodded politely. As they exited the Arab village, the businessman muttered, “They live like pigs. The children are dirty, the adults more so.” He then pointed to the exact spot where Abraham had cast out Hagar and Ishmael from the land of Israel, as if he himself had witnessed it.

Geza tilted his head in that particular way, which suggested debate. “But you see, the Arabs have been bought out by the Jews, who purchased the land from Elias Sursuq, an Arab and a businessman, like yourself, who didn’t mind selling Arab land for the right price. Of course they’re angry. Of course they’re poor. Their land has been sold out from under them by one of their own. You should not mistake poverty for ignorance.”

The man shrugged. “They throw stones. They start trouble.”

The terrain turned rocky and Spartan.

They passed the rest of the ride in silence.

The bus turned off the main road, traveling inland, when finally the valley revealed itself. Fertile, swaying with wheat and sunflowers, it was a green and cool reprieve. From a distance, Vicki and Geza gazed upon their new home. They saw rectangular huts scattered across the settlement. They saw cattle milling about, corralled behind wire fencing. They saw chicken coops and groves of pomegranate trees. They saw tractors plowing the fields. They saw a large white building in the center of town. They saw stout young palms sprouting up haphazardly, without much design or order to their placement.

The bus stopped in front of the entrance to Beit Alfa, indicated by a rusty metal sign. Vicki gripped the seat in front of her. Young men, in caps and work boots, strode with purpose across the main square. A few women, working in the communal garden, peeked out from under their
wide-brimmed hats at the bus. A line of children wearing bonnets and bloomers held bunches of wildflowers to welcome them.

Vicki steadied herself against Geza. He squeezed her hand three times. Then he moved down the aisle of the bus, falling behind the other passengers. She followed him. Other people’s voices, some familiar, some not, floated behind her; they discussed the heat, their hunger, where they would put all the suitcases. She could only focus on the back of Geza’s neck—if she looked at the line of hopeful, dusty children holding flowers, if she turned around and saw Maya’s stained dress, if she glanced down at her own dirty feet encased in sandals, she knew something inside of her would break. And so she didn’t.