The Last Rain (25 page)

Authors: Edeet Ravel

BOOK: The Last Rain

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Some say it’s good they have left, as they didn’t belong.

The commune lives on. There is a strong desire to overcome all obstacles. The weak will leave and the strong will stay.

1 January 1924.
No work. The swamp-clearing was stopped and the stone-clearing has resulted in piles of stones that have no purpose.

We are cold and hungry. There’s no work and no money. The wind rips our tents apart, leaving us exposed to the downpours and the mud. We spend the night at the bakery, where they make bread with flour that gets delivered from Haifa during the night. Homeless and tentless, felled by the wind, everyone comes to the warm bakery to enjoy a pita and a glass of black coffee without sugar. We stay all night. In the morning we put the tents back up.

Still, one by one, members are departing.

But what are these difficulties next to our celebrations? Our faith in the future of our commune has not diminished.

14 January 1924.
Today, at the clothing stockpile, I was amazed to see a childcare worker taking underpants and undershirts into the Children’s House. The woman explained that there are not enough diapers and underwear for the children, so they use those of the adults.

Dori

A magazine came in the mail from Mummy’s friend in Canada. It has a booklet inside it with pictures of jewels on a black background. Pages and pages of pearls and rubies and diamonds on gold and on silver.

I don’t know why Mummy’s friend sent us this booklet. We can’t buy any of these things and we also don’t want to buy them because we don’t believe in jewellery.
⁶³

I can’t decide if I like the jewellery. It’s very pretty but it’s jewellery.

But here’s something I know I like. Oh this is the most beautiful blue I have ever ever seen in my life. There’s a girl in a big basket tied to a balloon and behind her is the most magnificent blue imaginable.

I cut the picture out and glue it on paper and now I can’t stop looking at it. I’m going to keep this picture as long as I live.

Our First Year

25 December 1949.
Yesterday afternoon about forty members rode off to Nazareth to hear the midnight mass choir. I stayed at home and worked in the kitchen, where I succeeded in giving the floor a good scrubbing.

After another crowd of fifteen or so went off to Jish to celebrate the holiday, we decided to have a little informal celebration of our own, so Yona prepared some toast spread with relish and tomato slices, and there was music and folk dancing and the small-crowd cozy feeling that weaves through the place whenever half the company departs.

On such occasions everyone sighs, “Oh, how nice it would be if we were a group of twenty or thirty,” quietly forgetting that if such a tragic condition were to prevail they would go batty inside of a month. With a hundred people I imagine it will take us ten years to establish ourselves.

Dori

Carmella takes us to the forest to cook mushrooms for Lag B’omer. We’re very excited. If only we had a Minder like Carmella everything would be different.

The forest has a heavenly smell and the ground is covered with pine needles and cones. We get wild but no one minds because it’s a forest. The children from Galron tell us there’s a baby buried in the forest. We go to look at the grave but all we see are some stones and no one knows if it’s a grave or not.

Carmella has two helpers today. They make a bonfire and we collect mushrooms and they fry the mushrooms in a pan over the bonfire. They know which ones are safe to eat. Children aren’t allowed to decide.

When the mushrooms are ready Carmella puts them on bread and hands the bread to anyone who wants. I take a bite but I don’t really like the taste. The mushrooms are too smooth. But I love the smell. And I love the bonfire and the forest. We all find branches and the helpers help us make bows and arrows. Some of the boys play Kill the Romans. The Romans were our Enemy long ago. We always have Enemies it seems.

Baby Diary

January 29, 1956

The girl is developing nicely. She sits up by herself and crawls backwards. I nurse her in the morning and in the evening. She’s eating well. Two weeks ago she went on strike and wouldn’t eat anything, maybe because of her vaccine.

The girl is quiet, relaxed and very cute. She babbles in a loud voice.

There are now six babies in the Baby House—three and three in the two rooms. She laughs at everyone and is very social. Each day at 11:00 I come and spend half an hour with her.

This month the doctor gave her a general examination. The doctor said she has an unusually fine body with very fine legs. And it’s true, she really does hold herself up very well.

Dori

I had a bad dream. Half the children in my Group and maybe also Carmella’s Group were standing together on one side and half were on the other side facing them and a huge orange snake was chasing me between the two sides. The children were standing as still as soldiers at attention. As still as statues. I was screaming and running back and forth but the snake wasn’t interested in the other children. Only in me. Maybe it didn’t even know the other children were alive. Maybe it thought they really were statues. I tried to hide with the other children and stand like a statue too but it didn’t work—the snake knew it was me.

Carmella was there too. She was standing nearby and watching with her arms folded and smiling. I was screaming my head off but she didn’t do anything.

I woke up but every time I went back to sleep I had that dream again. It went on scaring me like crazy all night long.

Transcript of the Social Committee Meeting May 1967

Chair:	Juliette
Present:	Shula, Lou, Finkel, Dagan
Juliette:	This is a very difficult meeting, so I’ll try to be as con-
	cise as possible. We have to decide three things, as I
	see it. First, are we involving the police? Hagar and
	her parents strongly oppose it and I feel their wishes
	have to be respected. It’s against our policy anyhow, so
	unless there’s any opposition to keeping the police out
	of it, we can probably get that one over with right away.
	Anyone opposed?
Shula:	No. We all agree.
Juliette:	Okay, the next item is that social services can’t take
	Eden until Tuesday. We found relatives he can stay with
	in Ramat Gan until then. We haven’t told them what’s
	going on, for obvious reasons. They can’t pick him up,
	so the question is, do we send him on his own?

Shula:	I don’t see why not.
Juliette:	He might run away.
Dagan:	He has ceased to be our problem.
Juliette:	Okay, I guess we can deal with that situation if it arises.
	Who’s going to be in charge of getting him to the bus
	in the morning? He’s hiding out in the carpentry shop
	at the moment, and seems to want to stay there. Also,
	who’s going to bring him food?
Lou:	I’ll look after it. I guess his kibbutz [stand-in] parents
	aren’t going to say goodbye?
Juliette:	They already have. They both went to talk to him last
	night.
Dagan:	The question is, what to do with the entire Group. Eden
	is not the only problem, as we’re all aware.
Juliette:	It’s an ongoing discussion. I’ll ask for it to be on the
	Meeting agenda again.
Dagan:	Do we need someone to burn the entire kibbutz down
	before we face what’s going on in Cactus? Let’s admit
	that integration failed, at least for this Group. No other
	kibbutz has integration, and now we know why.
Juliette:	The other integrated Groups are doing well … Which
	brings me to the last question: do we bring a suggestion
	to the Meeting that from hereon we stop taking chil-
	dren with a delinquent background, we form a selection
	committee, and we pick and choose those who would fit
	in and benefit the most?
Dagan:	I’m surprised that wasn’t the policy all along. If we can
	only accept a tiny fraction of kids in need anyhow, why
	not accept those who most deserve a chance? Youth
	Aliyah has plenty of sweet, motivated, well-adjusted
	kids who need a place. Why take the hopeless cases they
	can’t find anywhere else to dump?
Juliette:	Well, you know Martin’s feelings. Everyone deserves a
	chance, especially those who are most troubled. Where
	is Martin, by the way?

Dori

We’re going to pick mulberries today! We have to put on raggedy clothes because mulberry stains don’t come off.

We ride to the trees in a cart. Mummy’s Group and my brother David’s Group are there too. Everyone climbs the two trees and picks mulberries and eats them. They’re incredibly delicious. I’m adding them to my list of favourite foods. Figs and pomegranates and soup almonds and mulberries.

There’s an ancient grave near the trees. Yosi Haglili and his son were buried there but it only has bones in it now. Mummy gets very excited every time she talks about that grave. Adults like very old things.

The grave is inside a cave with two gates. Some of the older children dare each other to go inside and the brave ones go past the first gate but no one goes past the second gate. It’s too dark.

Finally Mummy says it’s time to go back. I’m allowed to go in the cart with the older children because Mummy is their teacher. David comes too. The Group starts singing I’m Just a Lone Wayfaring Stranger in Hebrew. I didn’t know it came in Hebrew. We had a record with that song on Davaar Street.
I’m going home to see my mother I’m going home no more to roam I’m just a going over Jordan I’m just a going going home.
Jordan is an Enemy but in the song it’s more like Yehupitz.

I’m Just a Lone Wayfaring Stranger and Gone Are the Days were my two favourite songs on that record. When we went to visit my aunt in Canada everyone always asked me to sing Gone Are the Days