Exodus - Leon Uris [330]
“The Egyptians have been acting up at Nitzana. We had to make a reprisal.”
Barak studied his son. Ari was bronzed from the Negev sun and looked as powerful as a lion.
“The Negev agrees with you,” he said.
“What is all this nonsense ema tells me?”
“Don’t feel obligated to cheer me up, Ari. I am ancient enough to die gracefully.”
Ari poured some brandy and lit a cigarette while Barak continued to study him. Tears welled in the old man’s eyes.
“I have been happy these days, except for you and Jordana. If I could only go and know I am leaving you content.”
Ari sipped his brandy and turned his eyes away. Barak took his son’s hand.
“They tell me you could be chief of staff of the army of Israel someday, if you would choose to come out of the desert.”
“There is work to be done in the Negev, Father. Someone has to do it. The Egyptians are forming fedayeen gangs of murderers to cross the border and raid our settlements.”
“But you are not happy, Ari.”
“Happy? You know me, Father. I’m not given to making demonstrations of happiness like new immigrants.”
“Why have you shut yourself off from me and your mother for two years?”
“I am sorry about that.”
“You know, Ari, for the first time in my life, these past two years, I have had the luxury of being able just to sit and think. It is wonderful for a man to be able to meditate in peace. And in these last few weeks I have had even more time. I have thought of everything. I know that I have not been a good father. I have failed you and Jordana.”
“Come, Father ... I won’t listen to such nonsense. Don’t get sentimental on me.”
“No, there’s truth in what I say. It seems now I see so clearly. You, and Jordana, and I ... the little time I have been able to give you ... and Sarah. Ari, for a family this is wrong.”
“Father ... please. No son has had the love and the understanding that I have. Perhaps all fathers believe they could have done more.”
Barak shook his head. “When you were a small boy, you were a man. You stood beside me and worked these swamps when you were twelve. You have not needed me since I put a bull whip in your hands.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of this. We live in this country for what we can do for tomorrow. It is the way you had to live and the way I live now. I won’t let you torment yourself. We had to live this way because we have never had a choice.”
“That is what I try to tell myself, Ari. I say what else? A ghetto? A concentration camp? Extermination ovens? I say anything is worth this. Yet, this freedom of ours ... the price is so high. We cherish it so fiercely that we have created a race of Jewish Tarzans to defend it. We have been able to give you nothing but a life of bloodshed and a heritage of living with your back to the sea.”
“No price is too great for Israel,” Ari said.
“It is—when I see sadness in my son’s eyes.”
“You didn’t take David Ben Ami from Jordana. It is the price of being born a Jew. Is it not better to die for your country than to die the way your father died, at the hands of a mob in a ghetto?”
“But the sadness of my son is my fault, Ari.” Barak licked his lips and swallowed. “Jordana has become a great friend of Kitty Fremont.”
Ari started at the mention of her name.
“She has become a saint. She visits us when she is in the Huleh. It is too bad you haven’t seen her.”
“Father ... I ...”
“Don’t you think I see the hunger in that woman’s eyes for you? Is this the way a man gives love, by hiding in the desert? Yes, Ari! Let’s have it all out now. You’ve run and hidden from her. Say it. Say it to me and say it to yourself.”
Ari got off the edge of the bed and walked away.
“What is this terrible thing in your heart that keeps you from going to this woman and telling her your heart breaks for her?”
Ari felt his father’s burning gaze at his back. He turned slowly with his eyes lowered. “She told me once I would have to need her so badly that I would have to crawl.”
“Then crawl!”
“I cannot crawl! I don’t know how! Can’t you see, Father ... I can never be the man she wants.”
Barak sighed