Exodus - Leon Uris [222]
“Ari, I’ve never asked a personal favor of you. I am about to do so.”
“Of course.”
“Karen is going to get over her father in time, but there is another thing that she may not get over. Dov Landau has run away from Gan Dafna. We assume he has gone to Jerusalem to join the Maccabees. As you know, she has taken the boy as a personal crusade. The loss of her father has magnified the loss of Dov. She is eating her heart out for him. I want you to find him for us and bring him back to Gan Dafna. I know you have the connections which can locate him. He would come back if you could convince him that Karen needs him.”
Ari blew a stream of smoke and looked at Kitty with curiosity. “I don’t think I understand you at all. The girl belongs to you now. He is the one possible person who stands in your way and he has removed himself.”
Kitty looked at him evenly. “I should be offended by what you say but I’m not because it’s true. The fact is that I can’t build my own happiness on her misery. I can’t take her away to America with this thing with Dov unresolved.”
“That is very commendable.”
“It isn’t honorable intent, Ari. Karen is a wise girl about everything but that boy. We all have our weak spots, I suppose. She will get over him far more quickly if he is at Gan Dafna. With him away in the Maccabees she will magnify his image until it is beyond proper proportion.”
“Forgive me for thinking in simple terms, Kitty. You are shrewd.”
“I love that girl and there’s nothing sinister or devious about it.”
“You’re making sure she has no place to go but with you.”
“I’m making certain that she knows she has a better place to go. Perhaps you don’t believe this, but if I knew it was better for her to stay in Palestine, this is where she would stay.”
“Maybe I do believe that.”
“Can you in all honesty tell me that I am doing something wrong by wanting to take her to America?”
“No ... it is not wrong,” Ari said.
“Then help me get Dov back.”
There was a long silence, then Ari snuffed out his cigarette on the wall. He peeled the paper, unconscious of his action and scattering the loose tobacco and balling the paper into a tiny knot which he put into his pocket. P. P. Malcolm had taught him never to leave traces of a cigarette. Cigarette butts were glaring signposts to Arabs in search of enemy troops.
“I can’t do it,” Ari said.
“You can. Dov respects you.”
“Sure, I can find him. I can even force him back to Gan Dafna and say, ‘Stay put little boy, the ladies don’t want you to get hurt.’ Dov Landau has made a personal decision that every Jew in Palestine has got to make with his own conscience. The feeling about this is very intense. My father and my uncle haven’t spoken to each other for fifteen years over it. Every fiber of Dov Landau’s being shrieks out for revenge. He is being driven with an intensity that only God or a bullet can stop.”
“You sound as though you condone the terrorists.”
“Sometimes I am in complete sympathy with them. Sometimes I detest them. Yet I would not want to be the judge of their actions. Who are you and I to say that Dov Landau is not justified? You know what they’ve done to him. You are wrong about something else. If he is brought back he can only bring more pain to that girl. Dov must do what he must do.”
Kitty got down from the wall and brushed her skirt and they walked toward the gate. “Ari,” she said at last, “you are right.”
Sutherland joined them as they walked outside to his car. “Are you going to be around long, Ben Canaan?” he asked.
“I have a few things to attend to in Safed. I better get them done.”
“Why don’t you come back and join us for dinner?”
“Well, I ...”
“Please do,” Kitty said.
“Very well. Thank you.”
“Good. Come on back up just as soon as you are through in Safed.”
They waved as he drove down the hillside, past the Taggart fort and out of sight.
“He who guards Israel shall neither rest nor sleep,” Kitty said.
“Good Lord, Kitty.