Exodus - Leon Uris [329]
In the evening a torchlight parade of youth groups started the celebrations. They passed in review before the green at the City Hall on Har Ha-Carmel and after the usual speeches there was a fireworks display from Mount Carmel.
The entire length of Herzl Street was packed with tens of thousands of people. Loud-speakers played music and every few yards hora rings formed. Herzl Street was a riot of whirling feet and music and color. Barak and Sarah joined the hora rings and danced to riotous applause.
Barak and Sarah were invited as guests of honor to the Technical Institute where the “Brotherhood of Fire,” the Palmach fighters during the riots, had gathered. They lit a huge bonfire and Yemenites danced and Druse Arabs danced and a lamb was roasted and Arab coffee was brewed and a chorus sang oriental and Biblical songs. All over the campus of the Technical Institute boys and girls from the settlements slept in each other’s arms. The “Brotherhood of Fire” danced and sang until daybreak.
Sarah and Barak returned to their hotel to freshen up, and even at daybreak the dancing was still going on in all the streets. Later in the day they drove in an open car along the parade route, to thunderous cheers, and went to the reviewing stand alongside the President.
Carrying banners like the ancient tribes, New Israel marched past Barak—the Yemenites, now proud and fierce soldiers and the tall strong sabra boys and girls and the flyers from South Africa and America and the fighters who had come from every corner of the world. The elite paratroops in their red berets and the border guards in green marched by. Tanks rumbled and planes roared overhead. And then Barak’s heart skipped a beat as the ovation rose in a new crescendo and the bearded, leathery Beasts of the Negev saluted the father of their commander.
After the parade there were more speeches and parties and celebrations. When Barak and Sarah left for Yad El two days later, dancers were still whirling in the streets.
No sooner had they reached their cottage at Yad El than Barak broke into a long, wracking spasm of coughing, as though he had been holding it in by main strength during the celebrations. He sagged into his big chair, exhausted, as Sarah brought him some medicine.
“I told you it would be too much excitement,” she admonished. “You should start acting your age already.”
Barak’s mind was on the tanned, rough youngsters marching in the parade. “The army of Israel ...” he mumbled.
“I’ll make some tea,” she said, fondly mussing his hair.
Barak took her wrist and pulled her down on his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder and then looked at him questioningly, and he turned his eyes away.
“Now that the celebrations are through,” Sarah said, “tell me what the doctors really told you.”
“I never have been able to lie to you very well,” he said.
“I won’t make a fuss, I promise.”
“Please understand that I am ready,” Barak said. “I think I have known it all along.”
Sarah uttered a short cry and bit her lip.
Barak nodded slowly. “You had better send for Ari and Jordana.”
“Cancer?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“A few months ... a few wonderful months.”
It was hard to think of Barak as anything but a giant. Now, in the succeeding weeks, his age showed frightfully. The flesh had melted from his powerful frame and he was bent with age and his complexion had turned sallow. He was in great pain but he hid the fact and adamantly refused to be moved to a hospital.
His bed was arranged by a window so that he could spend his days looking out upon his fields and up the hills to the border of Lebanon. When Ari arrived he found Barak here, gazing with sadness toward the place where Abu Yesha no longer existed.
“Shalom, abba,” Ari said embracing Barak. “I came as quickly as I could.”
“Shalom, Ari. Let me look at you, son. It has been so long ... over two years. I thought you might be at the