I heard bombs falling. I counted and sorted the big from the small, the close from the far. The walls of the shelter vibrated. “That one fell on Yitzhak’s house,” said one of the kids laughing mischievously. Mrs. Goldstein, who had lost her husband in a previous war, held Yitzhak by his wrist. She looked at all of us with piercing eyes.
“Don’t ever, ever, say something like that, understand? What… are you, on their side?” she said.
Minus the able bodied men, our neighborhood sat together underground. Maps hung on the walls, sand bags lay on the floor, transistor radios tuned to different stations simultaneously. We compared their broadcasts: Israeli news to the BBC to the enemy reports.
Mr. Cohen, a retired teacher, marked the maps on the walls with the routes of the Israeli army in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He used three different colors according to different sources. Arrows pointed in different directions. He wrote the number of casualties on the bottom of the maps. Red was ours Blue was theirs.
Mrs. Mizrachy, Yitzhak’s mom, born in Egypt, translated broadcasts of the Arabic stations with contempt and disbelief. Mr. Cohen meticulously translated the BBC while reading between the lines. We each listened to the Israeli news comparing the other stations’ versions to the one and only truth.
Women congregated in the back of the room. They whispered with worrisome looks, while slicing tomatoes and onions using knives that were grabbed at the last minute. In the middle of the room stood a big noisy Bunsen burner. Its uneven blue flames marked off the war room from the kitchen.
One mom told me to put my pajamas on. By a silent agreement the women became a collective mother whose husband was at the frontline. I silently obeyed. Some of the older or handicapped men took turns going outside, filling bags with sand surrounding our shelter with extra protection inside and outside. Once in a while one of them would be sent by the kitchen crew to fetch an important spice that had been left behind or a special pot that they could not do without.
In our pajamas the kids sat quietly around Mr. Cohen. He read a story to us about a Jewish hero called a partisan who fought against the Nazis, saved hundreds of people and miraculously survived. The partisan then settled in Israel and formed a successful Kibbutz in the desert. Altruism seemed to be the message, consciously or not.
In the gray small and damp shelter the kids, elderly men and women all felt united with one belief, one hope and maybe one future.
Mixed with fear we experienced the anxiety about our future — something we picked up from our mothers. There was also a feeling of celebration in the air — a sleepover party without a planned end.
But that was the first day after the sirens shocked us all. By the end of the third day we had had enough and wished the party was over. It wasn’t, and we had no idea how long it was going to continue. The serving size of the dishes got smaller, while the red and blue numbers on the maps got bigger. The encouragements to take showers faded. Sleeping with clothes on passed unnoticed and the spirit of altruism started to dwindle.
On the fourth day we could hear “I want this mattress tonight, why does he get to sleep near the door? I want jam on my bread too. Until when are we going to stay here? Is daddy going to come back? What if he died? Why don’t they build windows… it’s too hot. Do we have enough food?” These were questions that started to break the spirit of unity, consideration, and confidence. It started with the little ones and slowly spread to the teenagers. After turning out the lights we could even hear the adults’ anxious whispers. By the fifth day the mothers were silent and their worried looks turned to terror. We were buying time, surviving, unable to pace ourselves.
Mr. Cohen tried to lift our spirits by marking areas, which had been conquered by the Israeli army. Large yellow empty areas in the Sinai desert became ours. Thin long areas on the right side bordering with Jordan were proclaimed as ours. Even in the cold north of Lebanon and Syria, the border was pushed out to unfamiliar areas of snow and heights. The young trim Israel I knew so well from geography classes with a long neck and wide waist all of a sudden looked like a strange, overweight older lady. All these new areas on the map seemed to comfetably expand while we seemed to be caged in the tiny shelter.
On the sixth day Mr. Cohen’s festive voice changed, “We got the desert and we got the mountains ladies and gentlemen” he said in a choked voice, “but it is not all… you did not hear even part of it yet…. This is a miracle… God returns to the Jews… we got all of Jerusalem….Jerusalem… the whole thing is ours…” He started to sob… “I swear I did not think it would happen in my lifetime…it is true… no more fences, no more fortified walls in the middle of our city. We can go and pray at the Wailing Wall. The temple is back. I swear to God it is ours….” He did not seem a military expert anymore, cool professional and calculating. He had become a religious, emotional Jew who muttered words of wonder and astonishment.
A few days later, as the metal door opened, we shot out in loud jubilations. Finally, drinking in the air and soaking up the light, we were out of the shelter. On Friday, my dad returned from the war. I had never seen him so tired, unshaved and thin. He hugged us long and hard. He did not seem as happy or as heroic as we all expected him to be.
“We won… right dad?” I said and my intended cheerfulness sounded forced.
That weekend our family planned to go to the Wailing Wall. We each dressed in our best clothes and waited for my uncle Leon to pick us up. He arrived right on time with his big car all clean and shiny.
On the way, we sang songs about Jerusalem. How beautiful and unpredictable she is, how she came back after years of being away. We sang of the seven mountains surrounding her like a wedding dress and how she smells like Jasmine and lemon. Our Jerusalem, of gold and copper and light, will make anyone fall in love with her beyond thought and reason. Her seven gates once forbidden to us — now, said the song, will open and let us into the holy of the holy – to the Wailing Wall.
My uncle, who had lost one eye in the independence war in 1947, noticed that my father did not sing. Without turning away from the road, he exclaimed loudly and cheerfully “Say something Joseph…Tell us, what did you do to them there?” My father just smiled uncomfortably as we arrived at the old city. A few of the Arabs, kids about my age, ran to our open window and yelled “Souvenir? Souvenir? Only one Lira!” My mom said “Roll your windows up!” She looked at my father and said with disdain, “They are just like mosquitoes running to the water.” My dad born in Egypt looked at their eyes and said in fluent Arabic, “No thank you… maybe later when we come back”. I felt baffled and somehow ashamed.
We made sure that the car was locked, that nothing was inside, and that no suspicious strangers were around. We walked toward the Jaffa gate which would finally let us inside the old city and lead us to the Wailing Wall. I looked at my dad and whispered accusingly, “Why were you nice to them? They are the enemy… they are Arabs.” He turned to me slowly and said, “Yes they are.” He looked away and spoke softly as if drawing memories from a muddy pond “I lived with them for many years, in Alexandria. They were my neighbors, my classmates. We played sports as a team. It’s true that we were different. We often kept to ourselves and celebrated different holy days. We spoke French amongst ourselves. But I had a lot of Arab friends…”
“Did you see your friends there when you fought? Did you have to kill them? Did they see you?” I interrupted with dread. Uncle Leon joined us. He patted my dad firmly on his back and said, “So is it true that they took their shoes off and ran barefoot on the hot sand, back to Egypt?”
My dad looked into the distance. He said “That’s it. I can see the Wailing Wall.”
It was a big wall divided unevenly into men’s and women’s sections. I was small enough to join my dad. A crowd of religious Jews wearing black outfits and white beards prayed fiercely. We made our way to the wall. My father stood close to the wall for a long time and held my hand. I looked around with disappointment. It was only a wall. In between the big square rocks there were many folded notes, requests, prayers and wishes for God. Higher than people’s reach there were green weeds growing in between the rocks. When I looked up at my dad, tears were streaming down his face.
As we left, we climbed old stone stairs, and met with the rest of the family. I asked my dad, “Is it true what uncle Leon said about the shoes?” He stopped and sat down on the side of a large worn stone step. He put me on his lap facing him, looked deeply into my eyes and said quietly but clearly, “Wouldn’t you take big heavy shoes off if you wanted to move quickly in deep sand?”