Exodus - Leon Uris [328]
She went from place to place as the aliyahs of the exodus formed. She made hasty flights to the European DP camps to break bottlenecks and she scoured Europe to find personnel and supplies. When the high point of the flood receded, Kitty was recalled to Jerusalem, where the Zion Settlement Society assigned her as an official in Youth Aliyah.
She had helped bring the youngsters in. Now she went at the job of getting them integrated into the complex society of Israel. Villages like Gan Dafna were the answers, but they were too few for the numbers arriving. The older ones received an education from the army of Israel, which became the greatest single integration instrument in the country, among other things teaching every new soldier to read and write Hebrew.
Kitty Fremont by now spoke a fluent Hebrew. She was at home flying in with Foster MacWilliams and a load of tubercular children, or visiting a border kibbutz. “Shalom, Giveret Kitty,” was a password in a hundred places which held her children.
And then something happened that Kitty found both heart-warming and heartbreaking at once. Kitty began to see the infants of the older youths she had known at Gan Dafna who had married and gone to the settlements. Some of them had been her babies in the camp in Cyprus and on the Exodus, and now they had children of their own. Kitty had watched the machinery of Youth Aliyah grow until it could handle any emergency. She had helped set up the administration and train the people, from the first harrowing trials of inexperience to the point where they constituted a smooth-functioning organization. Now Kitty Fremont suddenly realized, with heavy heart, that her work was done. Neither Karen nor Israel would need her, and she decided she should leave forever.
Chapter Three
BARAK BEN CANAAN reached his eighty-fifth year.
He retired from public life and was content to worry about running his farm at Yad El. It was what he had longed for for half a century. Even at his great age Barak remained a powerful man, mentally alert and physically able to put in a full day’s work in his fields. His enormous beard was almost fully white, but there were still traces of the old red flame in it and his hand still had a grip of steel. The years after the War of Liberation gave him great contentment. He had time, finally, to devote to himself and Sarah.
His happiness, however, was qualified by the unhappiness of Jordana and Ari. Jordana did not get over the death of David Ben Ami. She was wild and restless. She had traveled in France for a while and she plunged into a few unsatisfying affairs that ended in bitterness. At last she returned to Jerusalem, David’s city, and went back to the university, but there was an eternal emptiness about her.
Ari had banished himself to the Negev. Barak knew the reason for Ari’s exile, but he was unable to reach his son.
It was just after his eighty-fifth birthday that Barak developed stomach pains. For many weeks he said nothing about them. As he thought of it, he was entitled to a few aches and pains. A nagging cough followed the pains, impossible to conceal from Sarah. She insisted he see a doctor but Barak made light of it. Whenever he did promise, he generally found reason to put off a visit to the doctor.
Barak received a call from Ben Gurion asking if he and Sarah would come to Haifa for the celebration of the third Independence Day and sit in the reviewing stand. It was a singular honor for the old man and he said he would come. Sarah used the occasion of the trip as a lever to make Barak promise to get a full examination. They left for Haifa five days before the celebration. Barak went into the hospital to undergo a complete physical check-up. He stayed in the hospital until the day of Independence eve.
“What did the doctors say?” Sarah asked.
Barak laughed. “Indigestion and old age. They gave me some pills.”
Sarah tried to press the issue.
“Come on, old girl. We are here to celebrate Independence Day.”
Crowds had been pouring