Wings of Refuge (17 page)

“It’s a bowling pin, sweetie.” Hannah caressed Rachel’s dark curls before she tottered away again.

“I admire your courage,” Devorah said. “I know how hard it will be for you to leave her.”

“I’m really not courageous at all. It’s like Ben always says—‘no choice.’ Jake would tell me to trust Rachel to God’s unfailing love.” She stood and drew Devorah into her arms for an ungainly hug. “But you’re right—it will be hard. I think I know how Jake and Ben must have felt when they had to leave us.”

Two days later, the director of the Israel Museum telephoned Hannah. “Can you possibly help us? We need to move all the antiquities into the basement for safekeeping in case the bombs start to fall.”

Hannah left Rachel with Devorah and rode whatever transportation she could find to the museum, walking a good portion of the way. Armed soldiers, troop transports, and even tanks roamed the streets, while Israeli fighter jets roared overhead, patrolling the skies. They were accompanied by the nerve-wracking stutter of helicopters. The tension that loomed over West Jerusalem was palpable, like a huge billowing thundercloud that would surely pour rain and split the earth with lightning at any moment.

Walking the museum hallways, Hannah felt as though she were returning home. She hadn’t worked since Rachel was born and hadn’t realized how much she missed the dusty texture of clay pots, the warm luster of ancient bronze. The task of packing thousands of precious artifacts and hauling them down to the safety of the basement was nearly as exhausting as excavating them had been in the first place, but she was protecting her daughter’s heritage, the proof that Israel belonged to Rachel’s ancestors as well as to her descendants. With the Arab nations poised to wipe the land clean of all Jews, it seemed as important a task as shouldering a machine gun.

At midmorning, she took a lunch break with her friend Rivka, who worked part time at the museum. They sat outside in a patch of shade, enjoying the warmth of the early summer day, if not the ominous rumbling of jets and vehicles or the stench of diesel fuel.

“This endless waiting is driving me absolutely crazy,” Rivka said. “I feel like there’s a gigantic time bomb ticking in the background and you know it’s about to explode, but you don’t know exactly when.”

“I know what you mean. And if it’s this tense for civilians, imagine how the soldiers must feel. Jake is sitting in a tank beneath the Golan Heights, waiting to be bombarded by Syrian guns. The Syrians have had twenty years to fortify the Heights, and their hateful Soviet friends to help them do it.”

“My husband is sitting under a camouflage net in the sands of the Negev, waiting to face the Egyptians. He says that all they do all day is wait and train and wait some more. They can’t stand it much longer.” Rivka paused as an Israeli Defense Forces fighter jet screamed overhead. She and Hannah covered their ears. “Now that Jordan is going to bed with Nasser, we’ll have to fight a war on three fronts. They said on the radio last night that huge mobs have been demonstrating in Cairo and Damascus and Baghdad, calling for Israel’s destruction.”

“I try not to listen to the radio too much,” Hannah said.

“We’re so small and vulnerable—and so incredibly outnumbered!” Rivka said in a trembling voice. “Do you think there is any way in the world that Israel can survive this war? Our nation isn’t even twenty years old—can this really be the end of us already?” Rivka’s fear was contagious. Hannah felt panic rising from its resting place, overshadowing her heart like a flock of vultures darkening the sky. She knew of only one way to put it to rest again.

“Do you ever pray, Rivka?” she asked, reaching for her friend’s hand.

She gave a nervous laugh. “You know me, Hannah. I wouldn’t know what to do inside a synagogue even if they did let me through the door.”

“I wasn’t raised in a religious home, either, but I’ve been attending Sabbath services with Jake ever since we were married. . . .”

“Rabbi Jake!” Rivka said, laughing. “That’s what everyone called him that summer we worked on the Desert Runoff Project, remember? But they meant it in a nice way. Everybody respected him, even if they didn’t always agree with him.”

“Well, you won’t be surprised to learn that his faith has started to rub off on me after six years of marriage. I didn’t know how to pray either, so I started by praying the psalms. Try it. With this crisis, it really helps keep my fear down to manageable proportions.”

“Thanks,” Rivka said. She squeezed Hannah’s hand before releasing it. “I will.”

“You know,” Hannah said, “there were so many times in the past when Israel was outnumbered by her enemies—just like we are now—but every time they called on God they won the battle.”

“Do you think we could win this war, too?”

“I’m trying to believe it. Jake was reading the prophecies of Ezekiel to me the week before he left. You probably know that famous part about all the dry bones coming to life, right?”

“I’ve heard people say that’s supposed to be Israel, coming to life on the ashes of the Holocaust.”

“Well, the chapter right after that one talks about a huge army coming against Israel after the Jewish people are gathered here from many nations,” Hannah said. “It sounds just like this crisis, with enemy troops advancing like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, plotting to invade peaceful, un-walled villages. And it says that God will allow them to come so that He can show His greatness and His holiness before the eyes of the whole world.”

“Wow! I sure would like to believe that!”

“Yeah, me too.” They gathered up their lunch wrappers and returned to work inside. The air was hushed and cool in the museum, a welcome relief from the clamor and warmth outside.

“You know,” Rivka said as they began packing a display of Iron Age pottery, “it would be very ironic if these artifacts survived three thousand years of careless warfare and mayhem only to be destroyed in a bombing raid after we’ve been so careful to protect them.”

“But they did survive for three thousand years, Rivka. And so will Israel. Even if we lose this war, the evidence will be here, safely buried for a future generation of Jews to unearth, proving once again that this land belongs to us.”

Two days later, Hannah attended Sabbath services with Devorah. It comforted her to imagine Jake and Ben and a
minyan
of ten men reading the same Torah passages and reciting prayers as they huddled beside their tanks. When she and Devorah took the children to the park that afternoon, they were surprised to find it crowded with picnickers, as hundreds of officers enjoyed a short home-leave from the front. Rachel pointed to the men in uniform, saying, “Abba . . . Abba.”

“You’d never know that we’re teetering on the brink of war, would you?” Devorah said. “It almost looks like a normal Sabbath afternoon. Maybe there won’t be a war after all.”

They learned a few days later that it was precisely what the Israeli government wanted the Egyptians to think. Sending so many officers home on leave had lulled them into believing that Israel wasn’t ready to attack. But at 7:45
A.M
. on June fifth, Israeli fighter jets launched a surprise air strike on eleven Egyptian air bases, destroying or disabling ninety percent of their aircraft. In a huge gamble, Israel had left behind only twelve planes to patrol Israeli airspace and committed the remainder to demolishing Egypt’s huge airforce. Syria and Jordan soon lost their airforces as well when they scrambled to Egypt’s aid.

“Thank heaven we don’t have to live in fear of air raids anymore,” Hannah said as she and Devorah listened to the news in astonishment.

“Yes, but we’re really at war now, Hannah. Do you know what that means? If we lose we die. That’s what Itzak Rabin said in his speech—it’s either victory or annihilation.”

“Then may God help us win.”

In the days that followed, Hannah worked to near exhaustion as an emergency medic. The ground-fighting was heavy in Jerusalem, and the rumble of artillery fire echoed off the surrounding hills like thunder. The air smelled as she imagined hell would smell—of smoke and burning and destruction. Even though there had been no fighting in the Golan Heights yet, where Jake and Ben were stationed, she was afraid to look at the faces of the wounded men, afraid she would see someone she knew. She returned to Devorah’s apartment each night after work and listened in amazement to reports of Israeli victories in the Sinai, the West Bank, and in the Old City of Jerusalem. With air superiority, Israel was able to capture huge tracts of land. After only four days of fighting, the Israeli Defense Forces had miraculously defeated their enemies.

When Devorah told her that the UN was already trying to negotiate a cease-fire, Hannah’s faith soared. “Maybe Ben and Jake won’t have to fight at all!” she said. The war was nearly over. God had answered her prayers. He had kept Jake safe.

On the fifth day of the war, Hannah was changing the dressing on a wounded soldier’s leg when one of the other medics came to her. “You must be pretty upset by the news, Hannah. Your husband is in the Golan, isn’t he?”

The roll of bandages nearly slipped from Hannah’s hand. “What news?”

“You didn’t hear? Moshe Dayan ordered the IDF to attack the Golan Heights.”

Hannah sank onto the bed as her knees gave way. All her reserves of faith in God bled from her heart as if the news had severed an artery. She was barely aware of the discussion between the medic and the wounded soldier, nor did they seem aware of how upset she was.

“I think it was a stupid thing to do,” the medic said. “The war was over, so why are they prolonging it?”

“Dayan had to do it,” the soldier insisted. “As long as the Syrians sit up on those fortified heights, aiming their guns down on us, life in the Galilee isn’t going to be worth living for any Israeli within shelling range. We’ve been tyrannized by them long enough. If we don’t win the Golan in this war, it will haunt us in the next.”

“But the Syrians outnumber us. And the Heights are thousands of feet above sea level in places. How are we going to launch a successful assault uphill? Even if we somehow manage to do it, our losses are going to be staggering.”

At the medic’s words, a terrible premonition gripped Hannah’s heart: Jake was going to die. She saw it as clearly, as vividly as if watching a motion picture. He was trapped inside his disabled tank on the Golan Heights under heavy Syrian artillery fire. In a horrifying burst of flame, the tank exploded. Jake and everyone else on board were burned to death. She would never see him, never hold him again. Hannah slid from the bed to the floor as she fainted.

The doctors sent her home when she revived. She knew by Devorah’s bloodless face that she had also heard the news. Hannah didn’t mention the premonition to her. Ben and Jake often manned the same tank. She and Devorah clung to each other throughout that day and into the night, listening to the news. There was no question of turning the radio off now, even when it reported severe fighting in the Golan, sometimes hand-to-hand, and heavy losses for both sides. Against her will, Hannah’s mind replayed the image again and again: a flaming tank, her beloved Jake trapped inside.

The next day the news finally came. Against all odds, the Israelis had captured the Golan Heights from Syria. They would now sign the cease-fire agreement. Six days after it had begun, the war was over. According to the jubilant newscaster, the IDF could have easily overrun Cairo, Amman, and Damascus. Exhausted, Hannah turned off the radio, kissed Devorah good-bye, and took Rachel home to wait for news of Jake.

The apartment smelled stale after being closed up for two days. Hannah decided to clean it, filling buckets with hot water and soap, scrubbing walls and floors and sinks until her hands were raw. In the bedroom, she took her prayer book off the bedside table and stuffed it into a drawer. It was useless to pray.

When the telephone suddenly rang, Hannah stared at it, her heart pounding wildly. She couldn’t answer it. She was certain that it was Jake’s commanding officer, calling to break the news of his death to her. She let it ring and ring. When it finally stopped, she yanked it off the hook. As long as she delayed hearing the terrible words that he was dead, Jake would remain alive a while longer.

Throughout the day, Hannah fed Rachel but could eat nothing herself. Instead of sleeping, she spent the long night reliving each moment of her six years with Jake. She was feeding Rachel her breakfast the next morning when the doorbell buzzed. Hannah froze with the spoon in midair, her daughter’s mouth open like a baby bird’s. Of course. The IDF didn’t telephone widows. They came in person with the bad news. She snatched Rachel from her chair and ran into the bedroom, clapping her hands over her ears to drown out the insistent buzzing. Thinking it was a game, Rachel did the same. At last the buzzing stopped.

The following afternoon, Hannah was lying on the bed trying to nap with Rachel when someone pounded on her door. “Open up, Hannah!” she heard Devorah shouting. “Or I’ll get the key from the superintendent!” When Hannah finally opened the door, Devorah pushed her way inside with her two kids in tow and sprawled onto the living room sofa, her lungs heaving with exertion.

“It would serve you right . . . if I went into labor . . . right here and now!”

“Dev, I’m sorry.” Hannah’s voice was barely audible.

“We’ve been trying to reach you for two days! Do you know your telephone isn’t working?” She gestured to it, then frowned when she saw that the receiver was off the hook. “Hannah! What is wrong with you? What’s going on?”

“Jake—” It was all she managed to say before tears choked off her words.

“Jake is worried sick because he hasn’t been able to reach you!”

Hannah stared. “He . . . he called you?”

“No, Ben called and asked if you were at my place. He said Jake has been going out of his mind because he couldn’t get through to you.”

“Jake is . . . all right . . . ?” Her voice sounded very tiny. Devorah suddenly seemed to comprehend.

“Oh, Hannah, yes! Yes, they’re both fine! They’re exhausted and nearly stone-deaf from all the shelling, but they’re fine. They’ll be home before you know it.”