Free the Debba (2010) by Avner Mandelman Page B
Authors: Avner Mandelman
was proud of me, he said. (My father never said a word about the entire affair. My mother said nothing either but cried for an entire day, hugging me at length and shaking her head whenever I asked her why she cried.) "Your father was once like that, too," Shafrir said. "And I, too, was like this," he went on, "before I learned my lesson. You have now learned yours. We must do some things the Prophets would not approve of, if we want to keep these sons of whores away from Dizzengoff. You hear? So don't you ever fuck up again! For your own good, Dada, and for ours! All of us! We know them, not from today! You hear?"
He hit at my shoulder with a balled fist, hard.
"Yes sir," I said, staring straight ahead.
"Fuck this yessir shit! Get out of here before I get mad! Get out! Dismissed!"
He saluted me and I saluted back, slowly.
Ehud, with his bum leg, could not return to the Unit, and until the end of his service was posted to a staff job in army HQ in Tel Aviv. I went back to doing dreck, and over the next three and half years, until my release, didn't fuck up once--even though my nightmares became steadily worse. At first I tried to ignore them, but finally in 1970, after a routine dreck job in Cairo, I didn't cross back, just lay low in Heliopolis for two weeks, drinking coffee and playing backgammon with street idlers in the City of the Dead. Finally, a week before my five-year service was over, I returned to base, refused to sign for an additional period, hitchhiked back to Tel Aviv, and applied for a visa for Canada. (My father objected terribly; my mother said not a word.) Uncle Yitzchak cosigned it, and the visa arrived quickly.
A week later, I left.
There's a photograph of Ehud and me on Um Marjam hill at night, against the full moon, our hair blowing in the wind. He stands with his legs spread wide. I tower over him by a head, my hand grabbing onto his shoulder, as if he's planted in the soil and I must hold on to him so as not to be blown away. Behind us is a shadow--the Thompson tent where the Armor Recon guys are sleeping, unseen but still alive. A darker shadow at its side may be a jackal, or perhaps a wild dog, one of those the Egyptians had left behind. And high above it all, round and jagged, floats the moon, like a peephole in the sky out of which some invisible jailer is watching over the birthplace of the evil scribblings that begat all the blood.
Some time later during the night I awoke from a black dream, my hair on end.
It was a dream I had never had before: I was standing in the moonlit yard of Har Nevo school and my father was calling to me from within a shallow hole in the ground, his tongue lolling through his blood-filled mouth, as he struggled to make his voice heard. I tried to get down on my knees to hear him, but my Nomex coveralls were so tight, it was as if my body had turned to wood. And when at long last I managed to kneel on the gravel, my father had vanished and I inexplicably saw before me the black snout of some beast leering at me, its mouth dripping blood and froth.
I awoke with a snarl. For a terrifying moment I imagined that the black beast had touched its snout to my face before retreating to watch me from afar.
I stared wildly about me.
Ruthy, in a white T-shirt and panties, was sitting on the edge of the sofa bed, her freckled arms hugging her chest, her nose a silver dot in the moonlight.
She said, "Did you read it already? I can't sleep."
For a moment I did not know what she was talking about.
"The play," she said.
I hissed at her to go back to bed, before Ehud woke up.
She said with derision, "Don't worry. One time, he's gone the whole night."
"Well, I have to sleep. The funeral--"
"So you'll sleep on the plane. Come on. Don't be a louse."
As we sat down at the kitchen table, Ruthy said in a tight little voice, "You want water with raspberry juice, something?"
"No," I said.
With the tips of her fingernails she extracted from the envelope several yellowing pages
He hit at my shoulder with a balled fist, hard.
"Yes sir," I said, staring straight ahead.
"Fuck this yessir shit! Get out of here before I get mad! Get out! Dismissed!"
He saluted me and I saluted back, slowly.
Ehud, with his bum leg, could not return to the Unit, and until the end of his service was posted to a staff job in army HQ in Tel Aviv. I went back to doing dreck, and over the next three and half years, until my release, didn't fuck up once--even though my nightmares became steadily worse. At first I tried to ignore them, but finally in 1970, after a routine dreck job in Cairo, I didn't cross back, just lay low in Heliopolis for two weeks, drinking coffee and playing backgammon with street idlers in the City of the Dead. Finally, a week before my five-year service was over, I returned to base, refused to sign for an additional period, hitchhiked back to Tel Aviv, and applied for a visa for Canada. (My father objected terribly; my mother said not a word.) Uncle Yitzchak cosigned it, and the visa arrived quickly.
A week later, I left.
There's a photograph of Ehud and me on Um Marjam hill at night, against the full moon, our hair blowing in the wind. He stands with his legs spread wide. I tower over him by a head, my hand grabbing onto his shoulder, as if he's planted in the soil and I must hold on to him so as not to be blown away. Behind us is a shadow--the Thompson tent where the Armor Recon guys are sleeping, unseen but still alive. A darker shadow at its side may be a jackal, or perhaps a wild dog, one of those the Egyptians had left behind. And high above it all, round and jagged, floats the moon, like a peephole in the sky out of which some invisible jailer is watching over the birthplace of the evil scribblings that begat all the blood.
Some time later during the night I awoke from a black dream, my hair on end.
It was a dream I had never had before: I was standing in the moonlit yard of Har Nevo school and my father was calling to me from within a shallow hole in the ground, his tongue lolling through his blood-filled mouth, as he struggled to make his voice heard. I tried to get down on my knees to hear him, but my Nomex coveralls were so tight, it was as if my body had turned to wood. And when at long last I managed to kneel on the gravel, my father had vanished and I inexplicably saw before me the black snout of some beast leering at me, its mouth dripping blood and froth.
I awoke with a snarl. For a terrifying moment I imagined that the black beast had touched its snout to my face before retreating to watch me from afar.
I stared wildly about me.
Ruthy, in a white T-shirt and panties, was sitting on the edge of the sofa bed, her freckled arms hugging her chest, her nose a silver dot in the moonlight.
She said, "Did you read it already? I can't sleep."
For a moment I did not know what she was talking about.
"The play," she said.
I hissed at her to go back to bed, before Ehud woke up.
She said with derision, "Don't worry. One time, he's gone the whole night."
"Well, I have to sleep. The funeral--"
"So you'll sleep on the plane. Come on. Don't be a louse."
As we sat down at the kitchen table, Ruthy said in a tight little voice, "You want water with raspberry juice, something?"
"No," I said.
With the tips of her fingernails she extracted from the envelope several yellowing pages