It was so hot my temples were pounding in a slow pulse. I could surrender to the heat, lose myself in it, succumb to the inner throbbing rhythm, or fight it. I chose to fight. I waved my hands at the still, static air to ruffle it, to move it — to create a wind. I was in a war against the brutal sun, I was five, and fighting it all alone. It stood there, in the center of the sky, austere and invasive, impossible to look at, impossible to ignore. I knew I would lose the fight. But I wasn’t about to give up. Feeling alone, overwhelmed, and already defeated almost made me cry, but I didn’t, I couldn’t give up before it started. I held my cry inside.
It was planned to be a fun day. All of us, my mom, dad, my two brothers and I went to watch, along with everyone else. The march of the Israeli army soldiers and weapons moved in one long, endless line. They were moving slowly on the streets like big halting animals. They reminded me of the enormous ants I used to watch in our garden, following each other in a long line, which ended in a forgotten breadcrumb. It was clear to me where these ants were going and why. But I couldn’t see the reason for the long tedious, colorless line of vehicles moving lazily in the midst of a heat attack. I knew that there was no huge sandwich waiting for them at the end.
Legions of people were standing on both sides of the streets, waving and clapping their hands. It made sense because they were moving the air, although no one else seemed to fight the sun like me. Coming down from my dad’s shoulders, I was alone in a forest of legs and shoes; it was all I could see. Everything seemed to slowly melt — an undifferentiated blend of grays and yellows, accompanied by muffled sounds of roars and hisses.
My dad lifted me up again to see the new tank, while explaining it was a Sherman tank we had just bought from the US. It was all one color — dirty brown — it was slow and grotesque. He placed me high on his shoulders, and the invading light startled my eyes. I was exposed harshly to the enemy, transgressed and violated by it. I screamed “I want down” back to my hiding place, where the sun couldn’t catch me, there, behind my dad’s leg, where a long narrow shadow was waiting for me.
It got hotter and hotter. I squinted as hard as I could to stop the pervasive, remorseless light from penetrating into me. I covered my skin to avoid contact with my enemy. I poured the last few drops of warm water onto my face from the red plastic container that was hanging on my neck. The last drop of ammunition was gone. I was terrified that all of me would evaporate. The pounding sound got louder and louder. I was close to giving up. I imagined myself letting go — collapsing onto the dark burning asphalt — merging with the throbbing sounds of my pulse — surrendering to the sun and resting forever in his long arms.
I felt very close to declaring defeat when my father asked if I wanted to go with him to get some ice cream. “To get cool inside,” he said and smiled. It was one of his long-lasting smiles, when he looked directly into my eyes and tried to guess my answer, an answer that was usually unpredictable even to myself.
My father didn’t know that he just saved my life — he came between my enemy and me. I put my hand in his and we walked swinging our hands up and down like a seesaw. The pounding sounds inside my head almost vanished. We found the ice-cream booth and stood in a long, long line. My hand lay safely in my dad’s hand and my thoughts took off in one direction, one line, towards one destination. I imagined the joy of holding the ice cream in my hand, its cool touch on my lips, the crunchy sound of the crispy cone, the smooth chilled sensation on my tongue, the sweet dark chocolate melting in my mouth, and the cool soothing feeling down my throat.
I prepared myself to answer the vender’s questions quickly to save time: no. not vanilla, only chocolate with no nuts, not the small size, the medium with the square shape, the one that looks like a bucket… and two napkins one to hold the cone, and one for after, so my hand won’t get sticky. I rehearsed it for a while. My hands grew restless in my dad’s hand; we got closer and closer to the ice cream — one minute away from complete bliss.
I got my ice cream exactly as I wanted it, chocolate in a medium cone. My dad had the big size — vanilla ice cream with nuts. I didn’t mind his strange taste. My ice cream was dark and shiny. It felt cool in my hand. It was cold enough to survive a few moments in the sun before it lost its shape. I looked closely at it; it looked like a flame of a torch, like the one I saw in the Olympic games that year. The symmetrical waves of the ice cream threw darker shadows on each other. It looked perfect. It was too good. It was too much.
With no anger, but tremendous surprise, I saw myself throwing away my ice cream. It landed on the ground upside down. My heart was beating fast, but the moment seemed to slow down as if it would never end. At last I was free from that ice cream yet ready to throw myself on the ground and lick it.
My dad saw that it didn’t fall down accidentally, he had seen my intention. I stood there as naked as I have ever been. Kneeling down to meet my eyes… I heard him asking very quietly… why? He was bewildered, but underneath I could see a stream of pain – pain of feeling detached, cutoff, disconnected, and humiliated by his failed effort to grasp.
I looked into his dark blue eyes, an ocean with two black islands, and I burst into a desperate cry. He held my hand and I wetted his hands with a stream of salty warm tears. He kept saying “its O.K.” He offered me his own ice cream, but I could not stop weeping and wailing. Nothing could comfort me. Something horrible had happened at that moment, which no one, including me, was able to understand.
When we got back to my mother the parade was over leaving mounts of trash behind. She and my brothers were sitting in a small uneven square shape of shade. I was uncontrollably gasping for air and bleeding from my nose. My dad said, in a broken voice, “I don’t know what happened, I don’t understand her…” He looked to my mom and said with plea “Maybe you will.”