The Glory (8 page)

“By your life, Kishote,” said Dayan, “let me have a study soon of such an operation. Meantime, Dado, what do we do?”

“Minister, even if the air force is out,” said Dado, “one requirement remains,
swift response
. Slow reprisal sends a hesitant and mushy message.”

“How about artillery, sir?” said Kishote. “Remind them we’re not a hundred miles off in the Negev anymore, but right there
at the Egyptian border.”

Dado nodded. Dayan’s good eye glinted. “We’ve been considering that, too, Kishote.”

“T
his is a mistake,” said Amos Pasternak.

He stood with his father in a sheltered observation post in the south of Sinai overlooking the deep blue Gulf of Suez, watching
the oil refineries on the other shore blazing and exploding. Squinting in the desert sun, Dayan was talking to interviewers
while cameramen filmed him against the background of the smoke and fire billowing over Egypt. The artillery exchange was still
going on: distant flashes, staccato thumps, and nearby earsplitting thunder, rolling smoke, and pale flame.

“So, you’re back from America a few hours, and you’re passing judgment on national strategy.” Sam Pasternak’s tone was rough
but not ill-natured. Despite his son’s fine tweed jacket and flannel slacks acquired in San Francisco, Amos’s Israeli look
was unchanged; swarthy and thickset like his father, his heavy oval face almost boyishly open, his dark heavy-lidded eyes
sparkling and sharp. He had telephoned at the first news of the
Eilat
, saying, “Looks like the war may be starting again, Abba. I’m not missing it, I’m coming home.”

“You’re a fool. There won’t be war, the Egyptians are still helpless.”

“They are? How did the
Eilat
sink? Some sailor pull the plug by mistake?”

“If you’re interested in your army career, stay at Stanford.”

“My career will be fine.” And here he was.

After a deafening artillery salvo close by, the father said, “All right, military genius, why a mistake?”

“Such a public event!” Amos gestured at the reporters. “On American TV, how will it look? Absolutely terrible. They won’t
show the
Eilat
going down, just the Jews bombarding peaceful industries. Only pictures count over there. Pictures!”

“Well, too bad there was no TV crew on the
Eilat
. The Americans know our ship was sunk, with big loss of life.”

“They’ve forgotten already. Anyway, what kind of surprise attack is this? Major oil refineries within artillery range, civilians
already evacuated? Zero shock. Nothing. Only shock can keep the Arabs off balance, Abba, and if Nasser calculated reprisal
targets before he sank the
Eilat
, this had to be number one.”

A white command car, with the blue letters UN painted on each side, was coming down the dirt road from the canal, raising
a long dust plume. “Well, well,” said Sam Pasternak, “the umpires are arriving to stop the fun and try to fix blame for who
started it. Ha! There are no umpires at sea.” He glanced at his wristwatch, and waved to his driver in a jeep nearby. “Let’s
get back to Refidim. A helicopter will be meeting me at twelve o’clock, I have to report to the Prime Minister.”

“Great. I’m dying to surprise my girlfriend.”

“Dvora? Is she still modelling for Yael Nitzan?”

“I assume so. I haven’t heard from her. We had a tiff before I left.”

“What about?”

“She wanted to come with me to Stanford.”

His father grunted and was silent. After some minutes of bumping along the unpaved track in a whirl of dust, Sam Pasternak
said, “For three reasons, Amos, that bombardment is no mistake. First of all, the Egyptians surprised us, we didn’t estimate
they’d dare such escalation, and politically something had to be done fast to shut off the Arab rejoicing. Not the Egyptians,
they were pretty quiet, but the other countries were calling the
Eilat
sinking ‘Israel’s Pearl Harbor.’ Second, our press and people were yelling for action. Third, our intelligence was that Nasser
expected a reprisal in the Port Said area up north, so this was in fact a tactical surprise.”

“Maybe, maybe. You know something?” Amos said. “California is the Garden of Eden, and this Sinai dust has the smell of Hell,
and I’m glad I’m back.”

Y
AEL LURIA
, read the sign over the Tel Aviv shop in stark block letters, gold on white, for in business Don Kishote’s wife used her
maiden name. In the window were two ultrafashionable dummies, skinny and faceless, one displaying a blue leather coat, the
other a miniskirted green suit. Inside, noisy American shoppers wore first names pinned to their dresses —
Marilyn, Connie, Isobel
— on small wooden Hadassah medallions shaped like Tablets of the Law.

“Good God,” Yael greeted Amos, stepping away from customers. “You! You went to Stanford, I heard.”

Amos had not seen Colonel Nitzan’s wife in a long time. She looked as American as her customers, lean, well-coiffed, dressed
in beige leather. Amos did not know exactly what had gone on between Yael and his father long ago. It wasn’t talked about
in the family, and he had heard only gossip, but whatever it was, he could understand it. “Well, I’m back. Dvora’s here?”

“Dvora? Yes, she’s with some rich Brit ladies in a private room” — Yael dropped her voice and looked oddly uncomfortable —
“modelling lingerie. Will you wait in my office?”

“Why not? Congratulations on Kishote’s Medal of Valor. How is he?”

“From the little I see of him, fine. He’s up north now, he’s Dado’s chief of operations.” She showed Amos into a cubicle decorated
with French fashion posters, where a lean curly-headed boy was writing in a copybook at the desk. “And this is our son. Aryeh,
this is Major Pasternak, a valiant warrior. I’ll tell Dvora you’re here.”

The boy peered at Amos’s tank corps emblem, and at the beret strapped on his shoulder. “If you’re in tanks, why do you have
a red beret?”

Sharp kid, this. “I’m qualified both as a tankist and paratrooper, Aryeh.”

“But which are you?”

“Well, that’s a story.”

“Tell it to me.”

Amos sat down in a wicker chair. “What are you doing?”

“English homework. My father is in the tank corps.”

“I know. Colonel Nitzan is a famous tank commander.”

Aryeh’s face lit up. He had Yael’s blue-gray eyes and snub nose, and with his thick blond curls he was pretty as a girl. He
read from his open book in stumbling English.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time …

“Zeh nifla, lo?”
(“That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”)

“You think so? You have good taste.”

“What do you really do in the army?”

“Special things.”

“What things?

“You have to be clever and strong to do them. Maybe you will one day, Aryeh. Do you know what ‘elite’ means?”

“Sure. The chosen. The best. That’s what I’ll be.”

“Then get back to your homework. First elite rule is, whatever you’re doing, do it with all your might.” The boy saluted,
bent over his notebook, and resumed careful writing.

Amos sat drumming his fingers on the wicker. Three months was a long time to be without a girlfriend, and he had not found
one at Stanford. He had met Dvora when she was finishing her draft service in the armor corps, and for a year they had shared
a flat in Ramat Gan for weekends of shattering lovemaking. She had been given to kvetching — so Amos had dismissed her persistent
protests — about this sporadic arrangement. She had wanted something more committed and positive, if not yet binding. Amos
didn’t. She was beautiful and sweet, but uneducated and lightweight, and as a companion for an academic year at Stanford University,
all wrong. So he had judged, and he had been tough about it, resisting her cajoling, her tears and her threats. Now he had
to make it up to her. He was thinking over an affectionate approach when here she came in a red bathrobe, her face all painted
up for modelling, her lovely brown ringlets exquisitely arranged. “So you’re back.”

“Dvora!”

He jumped up with open arms. She threw a glance toward the boy and beckoned to Amos. He followed her into a small multi-mirrored
dressing room, where she shut the door and stood with her back to it, hands behind her. “Didn’t you get my letter?”

“What letter? I never heard from you.”

“I wrote you a very long letter, Amos, back in September.”

“It hadn’t arrived by the time I left.”

“What made you come back?”

“The
Eilat
news. I flew home as soon as I could.”

“I see. So how was Stanford?”

“What was the letter about,
motek
[sweet]?” She was acting strangely, a bit stunned, perhaps.

“Oh, what you would call kvetching, I guess.” Amos decided to cut through this nonsense, and made to take her in his arms,
whereupon she whipped a hand from behind her back, and held it clenched under his nose. “About this, actually, if you want
to know.”

“L’Azazel!” The plain gold band was the very long letter in one stark fact. “You didn’t really marry Ben, Dvora?”

“I said I would. I swore I would. You knew that.” Her voice began to break, and her eyes to brim. “And I love Ben, and I’m
happier than I ever thought I could be, and I’m two months pregnant.
B’seder
[Okay]? And I’ll have to quit this job soon, and I don’t care a bit, Ben makes a fine living with his filling station. So
what can I do for you, Amos Pasternak?”

He took a moment to find his voice. “Just be happy, Dvora, that’s all. Have a long happy life, and a wonderful family. Congratulations,
and congratulate Ben for me, he’s very lucky.”

She choked out one word, “
Hazzer
[Swine],” and disappeared with a doorslam, leaving Amos looking at half a dozen nonplussed images of himself and thinking
ruefully,
Talk about reprisal!
Threading through the Hadassah ladies, he left the shop and saw a new blue Porsche pull up at the curb, out of which jumped
another romantic misfire of his, Daphna Luria.

“Amos Pasternak!” Sprightly tone, flirtatious smile. “Why aren’t you in California?”

An Israeli query, that. He had not talked to Daphna Luria for nearly a year, and they moved in different circles, but here
everyone tended to know everything about everybody else. Somewhat asphyxiating, at times. “Nice car,” he said to the young
driver as he got out, an American by his clothes, his haircut, and his callow look, not to mention the exotic automobile.

“This is Noah’s cousin from New York,” said Daphna. “Dzecki Barkowe. He’s made aliya.”

“He has? Kol ha’kavod,” said Amos, perceiving the resemblance, but guessing that this fellow was no Noah and would probably
not last long here.

“Actually, Amos might be the one to talk to,” she said to Dzecki, as the men shook hands.

“What about?” Amos inquired.

Dzecki said in clumsy slow Hebrew with New York inflections, “My draft service. I’m thinking maybe I should go in now, get
the three years over with. A crash course in being an Israeli, you might say.”

“A real question.” Amos shrugged. “Just don’t be hasty. Once in, you can’t get out. Daphna, how’s Noah?”

“He’ll be all right, but he’s still in much pain. We’re going to visit him after I pick up a new dress. My aunt gives me big
bargains.”

“Bad business, the
Eilat
sinking,” said the American. “But I’ll bet the Egyptians will be plenty sorry.” He trailed after Daphna, as she went into
the shop with a farewell wave at Amos.

Why had they never clicked, he and Daphna? Unlike Dvora she was mighty bright, extremely well read, sure of herself, maybe
a bit too aware that she was a Luria, a squadron leader’s daughter, and very pretty, if no Dvora; also given to leftish antimilitary
patter, which she considered smart and he thought an unserious nuisance. Whatever the reason, their few dates had fizzled.
Noah Barak was welcome to Daphna Luria, since she fancied him.
There
was a real mentsch, Noah Barak. Noah had had rotten luck, but at least he was alive and recovering. Amos meant to visit him
soon.

What now? He decided to telephone Sue Weinberg, a divorcée in Kfar Shmaryahu, who was sure to welcome him with joyous warmth,
a superb meal, and a familiar bedroom. Three kids, no future there, but somehow he got along best with older women. Girls
made problems.

MAIMONIDES HOSPITAL

HAIFA

November 10th, 1967

Dear Abba:

You keep asking about Daphna Luria in your letters. Actually, she’s been here several times. She couldn’t be sweeter, and
I could become serious about Daphna, but I doubt she’s in that frame of mind. Not yet, anyhow. That dizzy relative of ours
Jack Barkowe usually brings her here in his damned Porsche. She says he’s just a pleasant kid, but she sure loves that Porsche.
He let her drive it and the Mekhess nabbed it, but with protectsia he got it back. Was that your doing? As for the physical
therapy, it’s starting to work at last. My back pain is almost gone, except when I make sudden movements. I’ll be out of here
in a week, the doctor says. But then what?

Abba, I’ve spent a lot of time on my back, thinking about my future. If I do go on with a military career, I doubt it’ll be
in the navy. I’m disillusioned and disgusted. Yesterday we had a reunion of
Eilat
survivors in the hospital dining room, and the guys who weren’t injured came and joined us. Strangely, it was uproarious.
Everybody making jokes, insulting each other, even horseplay. Sheer joy of being alive and together again, we all felt it.
Also shutting out our sadness about all the guys we lost. Anyway, it was something. The captain wasn’t there. He’s out of
the hospital, but in terrible mental shape. So am I, Abba.

Do we even need a navy? It’s a marginal branch at best, isn’t it? That sense of being inferior, not crucial to Israel’s survival
like the tanks and the air, pervades the service. Slack, slack, slack! Slackness caused the sinking of my ship. Where we were
steaming, the attack was no surprise. We should have been ready with countermeasures, but that’s not the worst of it. In the
Beersheba hospital ward where they first took us, General Gavish, Commander South, came and asked the captain why he was sailing
within missile range, when Southern Command had hard intelligence
that the Egyptians were preparing to fire missiles
.