Exodus - Leon Uris [30]
“Do you really think he can get away with this utterly fantastic plan of his?”
“He’s a clever man.”
“Well ... I’ll say one thing. This Ben Canaan doesn’t act like any Jew I’ve ever met. You know what I mean. You don’t particularly think of them in a capacity like his ... or fighters ... things of that sort.”
“How do you think of them, Kitty? The good old Indiana version. The little Jew boy named Maury who’s going to marry a little Jew girl named Sadie ...”
“Oh, stop it, Mark! I’ve worked with enough Jewish doctors to know they are arrogant and aggressive people. They look down on us.”
“With what? An inferiority complex?”
“I’d buy that if you were talking about Germany.”
“What are you trying to say, Kitty—that we’re pure?”
“I’m saying no American Jew would trade places with a Negro or a Mexican or an Indian for that matter.”
“And I’m saying you don’t have to lynch a man to rip his insides out. Oh sure, the American Jews have it good, but just enough of your thinking and enough of two thousand years of being a scapegoat has rubbed off on them. Why don’t you argue it with Ben Canaan? He seems to know how to handle you.”
Kitty shot off the bed angrily. Then both she and Mark began to laugh. They were Mark and Kitty and they could not really be angry.
“Exactly what is this Mossad Aliyah Bet?”
“The word aliyah means to arise, go up, ascend. When a Jew goes to Palestine it is always referred to as an aliyah ... always going higher than he was. Aleph or the letter a was used to designate the legal immigration. Bet or the letter b for the illegal. Therefore Mossad Aliyah Bet means Organization for Illegal Immigration.”
Kitty smiled. “My goodness,” she said, “Hebrew is such a logical language.”
For the next two days after Ari Ben Canaan’s visit Kitty was perturbed and restless. She would not admit to herself that she wanted to see the big Palestinian again. Mark knew Kitty well and sensed her irritation, but he pretended to carry on as though Ben Canaan had never entered the scene.
She did not exactly know what was disturbing her, except that Ben Canaan’s visit had left a strong impression. Was it that American conscience that Ben Canaan knew so well, or was she sorry about her anti-Jewish outburst?
Almost but not quite casually Kitty inquired when Mark expected to see Ari. Another time she made an unsubtle suggestion that it would be nice to go sight-seeing in Famagusta. Then again she would grow angry with herself and resolve to wipe out any thought of Ari.
On the third night Mark could hear Kitty’s footsteps through the connecting door as she paced back and forth in her room.
She sat in the darkness in an overstuffed chair and puffed on a cigarette and decided that she would reason out the whole matter.
She did not like being drawn against her will into Ben Canaan’s strange world. Her entire approach to life had been sane, even calculating. “Kitty is such a sensible girl,” they always said of her.
When she fell in love with Tom Fremont and set out to win him it had all been a well-thought-out move. She ran a sensible home and served sensible meals on a sensible budget. She planned to give birth to Sandra in the springtime and that had been sensible too. She stifled spur-of-the-moment impulses in favor of planned decisions.
These past two days seemed to make no sense to her at all. A strange man appeared from nowhere and told her an even stranger story. She saw that hard handsome face of Ari Ben Canaan with his penetrating eyes that seemed to read her mind mockingly. She remembered the sensation in his arms, dancing with him.
There was no logic to this at all. For one thing Kitty always felt uncomfortable around Jewish people; she had admitted as much to Mark. Then why did this thing continue to grow?
Finally she knew that she would continue to be disturbed until she saw Ari again and saw the camp at Caraolos. She decided that the way to beat this whole idea was to see him again and assure herself she was not mystically involved but had merely been jolted by a sudden and brief infatuation. She would beat