Israel
Authors: Fred Lawrence Feldman
ISRAEL
Fred Lawrence Feldman
Copyright © 1984 by Fred Lawrence Feldman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any form. For information, address Writers House LLC at 21 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10010.
ebook ISBN 978-0-7867-5444-1
Distributed by Argo Navis Author Services
For my wife Marjorie and my friends and professional colleagues, Albert Zuckerman and Ed Claflin.
Thanks for believing in a dream begun, deferred, renewed.
Israel, 1949
The silvery TWA Clipper banked like a hungry bird of prey over the sun-dappled Mediterranean. The big airliner's four prop-driven engines changed in pitch as the plane began its descent over the sandy dunes and pastel sprawl of Tel Aviv.
“We'll be landing at Lydda in just a few minutes,” announced the haggard-looking stewardess as she lurched and swayed the length of the first-class cabin. “Please extinguish all cigarettesâ”
“You've made a mistake,” the stylishly dressed woman in her thirties said as the stewardess passed her.
“Pardon me?” the young stewardess asked, startled.
“It's not Lydda, it's Lod,” Rebecca Pickman corrected her, stubbing out the remains of her Lucky Strike. “It's called Lod now that it's ours.”
Rebecca, her large brown eyes steadfast, watched as the pink blush of confusion began at the stewardess' throat and rose to suffuse her ivory features. The stewardess, nodding, said, “Yes, of courseâLod,” then continued down the aisle.
Rebecca chuckled, turning her attention back to the window to gaze at the dark green citrus groves and the patchwork of cultivated fields that rushed up at her as the Clipper lowered its landing gear and swooped down toward the airport. She was exhausted but exhilarated. Her journey had begun days ago in New York. The transatlantic leg of the trip was a nine-hour stomach-lurching battle between screaming headwinds and roaring, defiant engines; it ended in defeat when the plane was forced to make a detour to Ireland's Shannon Airport in order to take on fuel. The unscheduled stop before they could continue to Paris was to stretch into a delay of several hours due to inclement weather.
It was during this predawn hiatus that Rebecca, her courage already stretched to the breaking point by the long, bumpy flight, wondered if she wasn't being a fool by coming in the first place.
It's been so long since we've seen each other, she thought, watching the fog streak tears down the windows of Shannon's waiting lounge. So much has happened. What if we're not the same people?
The mist abruptly turned to a pelting rain that rattled the window panes. Rebecca, shivering against the damp, wrapped her cashmere coat around her shoulders. Her fingers nervously stroked the rich, soft fabric. Luxury had become her shield. It was luxury, won by her intelligence and determination, that had allowed her to blossom into an attractive, desirable woman. She was still young, but much had happened in her brief life. The immigrant shopkeeper's daughter had managed to transform herself from a poor drab creature into a radiant butterfly. She had risen to the top of her profession; she had been loved; and yetâ
Rebecca Pickman, shivering like a waif in that Irish airport, listened to the rain, stared at the nicotine stains on her trembling fingers, brushed at her mahogany hair frizzing in the clammy weather and wondered if it hadn't all
been a horrid joke on her. Tired, alone in a strange country and at a crossroads in her life, Rebecca was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to give up this crazy pilgrimage to the newborn State of Israel and return to New York. If she didn't, in Israel she would become that drab shopkeeper's daughter all over again.
She didn't know what she might have done if that driving rain had continued, but it stopped, and then miraculously the mists began to lighten. In a matter of minutes Rebecca could see a bright morning sun. The boarding announcement was made and the flight went on to Paris, where a long hot soak in a tub and a good night's sleep in her favorite hotel restored her for the next leg of her journey, to Greece.
Rebecca started and then relaxed, realizing that what she'd just felt was the blessed bump of the Clipper's tires kissing the concrete of the runway. It seemed to her that the plane was going faster on the ground than it ever had in the air, but gradually it slowed and then began to taxi toward the low-slung barracks that housed arrivals and Customs.
At last the Clipper came to a halt, and one by one the propellers stopped spinning. The door swung open and Rebecca caught a glimpse of a flawlessly blue sky framed by the open portal. Then she was hurrying down the steep staircase to the ground.
The first thing to hit her was the warmth of the day, more than a little disconcerting after the still-raw spring in America and Europe. But then, she expected it to be warm. She thought of the last letter she had before she left.
No, it is not all like the desert you have seen in the movies. Come and I will show you pine trees on the slopes of Mount Carmel and snow on the peaks of Upper Galilee. I will show you forests of cypress and fragrant
eucalyptus, acres of grapefruits hanging from leafy boughs like yellow balloons, olive groves like the ones in Greece, rivers winding through mighty rock formations like America's Grand Canyon, multicolored carpets of wildflowers, and song birds like maybe in heaven itself
.
There Rebecca noticed that his hand's bold blue stroke suddenly grew faint, the way his voice characteristically did when his own depth of feeling surprised him.
Come, Becky, and I will show you where our people began. Come home to Israel, Becky. Come home to me
.
And here she was, tottering down the steps, her cashmere coat over her arm, an oddity in this land of khaki shirts and shorts. She had been drawn here not by one letter but by a chain of them, letters that came every day and left her hungry, yearning for word from him if ever one was delayed.
Now as she surveyed the airport and its Hebraic signposts, glistening like wet paint, as she stared out at the milling sea of khaki, she felt like a visitor to another planet. Now she wished she had his letters in her hands as a talisman against her insecurity the way her fine coat was a talisman. She was on the threshold of new experience. Rebecca knew this would be nothing like her posh life in New York, not even like her humble beginnings on the Lower East Side.
His letters were right on one count at least; Israel was like no other place on earth. But if it was to be her homeâwell, she would see.
“Mrs. Pickman?”
Rebecca turned, not easy in the midst of the crowd milling toward Baggage and Customs. The man hailing herâthe
boy, actually, for he looked too young to order a drink in New York Cityâbowed respectfully.
“I am in charge of Customs. There is no need for you to wait in line. Please follow me.”
Rebecca did, feeling vaguely self-conscious at this special treatment. In New York she had come to expect it as her due, but here in the pioneer land of Israel she felt she was cheating at a new game.
“If you'll hand over your baggage check, I will see to your luggage.” The customs official steered her toward a quiet gate. When they reached its desk, he stamped her passport. Smiling, he reached for her cashmere coat. “You won't be needing that. It'll be safe with your luggage.”
Rebecca handed it over, feeling a faint twinge of panic. Suddenly she felt stripped of her past. Good-bye luxury. Here she was just another shopkeeper's daughter in a land spawned by shopkeepers.
The thought was fleeting, for Rebecca's attention was transfixed by the sight of a flag hoisted high and fluttering in the hot, dry breeze. It was a white banner with two horizontal blue bars, the ancient colors of the tallith, the prayer shawl. Between the two bars was the Mogen David, the six-pointed star, the symbol of Jewish life popular for over three hundred years in Central Europe.
The shield of David had no religious significance; it spoke for the physical reality of the Jews' existence on earth. The new Jewish nation could have chosen no other symbol.
“You look at it like you can't believe it is real, Mrs. Pickman,” the young customs officer softly chided. “You of all people should know that it is real. You worked hard enough and gave enough money and speeches to make it so.”
Rebecca felt her eyes grow wet. “Who knew I was telling the truth?” she laughed.
“Oh, you were telling the truth.” He nodded, grinning.
“We have our own flag, our own passports, our own money, our own military, even our own language, Hebrew.” He winked at her. “Which you must learn in order to fit inâ”
“That'll be the day,” she said. What she thought was, If I want to fit in. Who knows if I'm staying?
She was nervously reaching for her cigarettes when she heard a familiar voice call out, “Becky!” She was dimly aware of the Customs clerk beaming as she began to hurry toward the man who had summoned her to this strange land.
As Rebecca ran, she kept her eyes on the ground. To see him from a distance was useless; she would only know if everything was all right when she could touch him, when she could see herself reflected in his eyes. Only then would she know if she was truly home.
“Becky!”
She sensed him moving toward her. She wouldn't look at him, not until they embraced, and then she'd know.
As she ran, Rebecca Pickman could not help thinking about the pageant of history and all that she had personally won and lost to bring her to this moment.
PART I
DREAMS BEGUN
Chapter 1
New York, 1910
Abe Herodetzky woke to the sound of a squalling child. He groped for his pocket watch and matches on the fruit crate that served as his nightstand. Squinting against the glare of the match, he saw that it was a quarter to five in the morning.
No great shame, Abe thought in Russian. I'd have to be up for work in a few minutes anyway. “No big deal,” he yawned out loud in thickly accented English.
He used the last of the match to light a stub of candle and took a moment to stare up at the cracked, blistered ceiling plaster. He had been dreaming of the past, of his arrival in America. Tattered fragments of his dream still lingered. The oil-dark choppy waters of the bay, the scudding clouds as grey as a Russian winter, the coppery towers of Ellis Islandâthe remnants of the dream teased him but refused to come quite clear.
Abe kicked away his tattered blanket. The dream faded as he cursed the chill in the Montgomery Street tenement. He climbed out of the rickety cot, stretching and scratching his pale, spindly body beneath his nightshirt.
The baby was still crying in the kitchen. He wished the parents would do something to quiet it, but he dared not complain. A boarder had few rights.
Every day more and more newcomers were flooding into New York. All of them needed a place to stay until they got jobs and learned their way around a little. Abe knew Joseph and Sadie could throw him out and find a new boarder in a matter of minutes. He also knew that this room, tiny as it was, with its single window opening onto an airshaft, was a veritable blessing. A private room, even a closet in disguise, was a rarity.