Exodus - Leon Uris [341]
Kitty looked to Dov and the boy nodded.
They walked in tragic procession toward the dining room. Jordana stopped Kitty outside the door.
“Ari sits alone in the barn,” Jordana said. “Will you go to him?”
Kitty walked from the cottage. She saw the lights of the other houses of the moshav. The Seder had begun in them. At this very moment, fathers were telling their families the age-old story of the Exodus as it had always been told by fathers and would be told for eternities to come. It began to drizzle and Kitty walked faster, toward the flickering lantern light from the barn. She entered and looked around. Ari sat with his back to her on a bale of hay. She walked up behind him and touched his shoulder.
“Ari, the Seder is about to begin.”
He turned and looked up at her and she stepped back as though from a physical blow. She was shocked by Ari’s face, distraught with a suffering that she had never seen in a human being. Ari Ben Canaan’s eyes were filled with anguish. He looked at her but he did not seem to see her. He turned and hid his face in his hands and his shoulders sagged with defeat.
“Ari ... we must have the Seder ...”
“All my life ... all my life ... I have watched them kill everyone I love ... they are all gone now ... all of them.”
The words came from profound depths of an unbearable despair. She was awed and half frightened by the almost tangible emotion that tortured the now-strange figure before her.
“I have died with them. I have died a thousand times. I am empty inside ... I have nothing left.”
“Ari ... Ari ...”
“Why must we send children to live in these places? This precious girl ... this angel ... why ... why did they have to kill her too ...?”
Ari staggered to his feet. All the strength and power and control that made him Ari Ben Canaan was gone. This was a tired and beaten hulk. “Why must we fight for the right to live, over and over, each time the sun rises?”
The years of tension, the years of struggle, the years of heartbreak welled up in one mighty surge. Ari lifted his pain-filled face to heaven and raised his fists over his head. “God! God! Why don’t they let us alone! Why don’t they let us live!”
And his powerful shoulders drooped and his head hung to his chest and he stood and trembled.
“Oh, Ari ... Ari!” Kitty cried. “What have I done to you! Why didn’t I understand? Ari, my darling ... what you must have suffered. Can I ever be forgiven for hurting you?”
Ari was exhausted, drained. He walked along the edge of a stall. “I am not myself,” he mumbled. “Please do not let the others know about this.”
“We had better go in. They are waiting for us,” Kitty said.
“Kitty!”
He walked toward her very slowly until he stood before her looking down into her eyes. Slowly he sank to his knees and put his arms around her waist and laid his head against her.
Ari Ben Canaan wept.
It was a strange and terrible sound to hear. In this moment his soul poured out in his tears and he wept for all the times in his life he had dared not weep. He wept with a grief that was bottomless. Kitty pressed his head tightly against her body and stroked his hair and whispered words of comfort.
“Don’t leave me,” Ari cried.
Ah, how she had wanted to hear those words! Yes, she thought, I will stay, this night and for a few tomorrows, for you need me now, Ari. But even as you show tears and humility for the first time in your life, you are ashamed of them. You need me now but tomorrow ... tomorrow you will be Ari Ben Canaan again. You will be all the strong, defiant Ari Ben Canaans who inure themselves to tragedy. And then ... you will no longer need me.
She helped him to his feet and dried his tears. He was weak. Kitty put his arm over her shoulders and held him tightly. “It is all right, Ari. You can lean on me.”
They walked from the barn slowly. Through the window they could see Sarah lighting the candles and reciting a benediction.
He stopped and released her and straightened himself up, standing tall and strong again.
Already, so soon, he was Ari Ben Canaan again.