Free Stateless by Alan Gold Page B

that God Almighty would save his people, Israel?
    Abram wanted so badly to live, and not to fail. The task set him by the rabbi had given him purpose and meaning. His young life had been of no consequence until the moment the rabbi had entrusted him with his mission. Now a Christian was trying to drown him.
    And so Abram kicked.
    He kicked with all his might. He lashed out his legs, digging his heels into the muddy bed of the river. He kicked and pushed with all his strength and felt the deathly strong grip of Abimelech slip away from his neck and relinquish its hold on his arm. Abram kicked and pushed his body into the river, deeper into the current, held his breath and let the rush of water sweep him away.

Palestine
    1943
    I t had been two years since Shalman’s father had been led away by the British, never to return. They knew he’d been taken to the fortress at Acre, but all they’d been told was that he’d died accidentally during interrogation; the British authorities said that he’d slipped and fallen down a flight of stone steps. They were sorry.
    Later the story was that he’d been found guilty of terrorism, and been hanged. And his family and friends had been dismissed, as though the rule of British law was nothing more than a joke.
    The people of the kibbutz didn’t speak about that day and neither did Shalman’s mother, Devorah. On a kibbutz, everything was shared and the community worked and cared for all. But one member of the kibbutz never recovered from the guilt of sending Shalman’s father to his death.
    Dov had honoured Ari’s request and treated Shalman as one of his own, though as he grew into young manhood, Shalman never really felt close to Dov’s other six children. He saw his mother retreat into an increasingly thick shell, now that her beloved Ari had been taken; she still cared for Shalman but nolonger with the warmth and depth he’d known when he was part of a family, playing on the beaches as a young boy. As the months rolled away, Devorah became increasingly locked into her own world of perpetual despair, distant and cold, not just from Shalman, but from everybody.
    Anger grew like a cancer in the young man’s breast. Every time the British army vehicles rolled past, or the people of the kibbutz were stopped at a checkpoint, Shalman felt anger. But it was anger that had no outlet until the day Dov handed him a small, heavy package in an oiled rag . . .
    Since the day Ari had been taken away, Dov – like Shalman’s mother Devorah – had changed as a man. Where he had once been jovial and energetic, he became focused and solemn. And with his change in demeanour came a change in his activities. Dov was still the kibbutz’s resident thief but as he trained others in the tasks at which he was so skilled, his activities took on a higher, more directed, purpose, separate from the kibbutz, and he grew increasingly distant from his chaverim , friends he’d known on the kibbutz for years
    When Shalman unwrapped the package Dov had handed him, he found the heavy, shining, gun-metal grey pistol he’d first seen the day his father had been taken away.
    â€˜You’re old enough now to use that,’ said Dov. It wasn’t even a statement of intent, just one of fact.
    Shalman weighed the pistol in his hand with ease, no longer fearful of dropping it as he had been the first time a couple of years before.
    â€˜If we’re to keep this land, we have to fight for it, we have to take it, Shalman.’
    The teenager looked at Dov, shifting his grip on the pistol into a position ready to draw and fire. But Dov said nothing more. Just squeezed his shoulder and walked away.
    Now, with the pistol, Shalman was a Jewish warrior. Weeksafter giving him the gun, Dov introduced him to some people, who seemed to like him. They bought him a beer, treated him like a man, and on the second occasion he met with them in a café