Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [50]
“Well, here we are,” she said shakily, afraid of what wild, crazy scheme I was going to come up with.
“I’ve never talked much about my childhood,” I began.
“I know. Sometimes I wondered if you ever had a childhood. It’s been like a wall around you.”
“You know how it is. You spend the second half of your life getting over the first half,” I said. “There are doors I’m opening a crack, one by one. I opened a door marked, ‘Danger, Tarawa and Guadalcanal, enter at your own risk.’”
“I think I understand,” she said.
“There’s a big, fucking iron vault door inside me. It’s marked ‘Jew.’ I have to open it and go inside. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to find in there. You remember me talking about my Uncle Matti?”
“Just a little. He’s the one who went to Palestine. Hero. Killed in the Arab riots of 1939. That’s about all I know,” she said.
“That’s about all I know, too. But I sense something dynamic happening. I sensed it the moment I opened the vault a crack. I—I want to go to Israel and find out. I’m not totally sure why but it’s magnetic, pulling me. It’s like the Old Man upstairs,” I said pointing to the sky. “He’s telling me to go. It’s an instinct I have to follow. I denied I was a Jew several times in my life. It’s been around my neck like an albatross all my life. I’ve got to free myself and I believe there may be a great book just waiting for a writer.”
She shook her head and laughed a little. “You take the cake, old buddy.”
“We can make it if we lease the house and you move down with your mom. The way I figure it, it’s going to take about six months to research. If I think it’s going to go longer, or if I decide to write the book there, I’d want you and the girls to come to Israel. It’s going to be tight, but if we count our pennies we can hack it.”
Val stared at me for ever so long. She was on the brink of tears. She had no illusions but that we were in for a long, terrible struggle. “You won’t settle for less, will you? You’ve got to win.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
“Val, if you can’t or don’t want to handle it, let’s say goodbye now, like buddies.”
“And after Israel? Timbuktu?”
“Maybe.”
“Gideon, I’ll keep up with you as long as I can. You go with my love. I’ll wait for you to send for us.”
HERZLIA, ISRAEL
October 11, 1956
IT BEGAN AS A low rumble. Flashes on the horizon looked like heat lightning. Valerie blinked her eyes open. She recalled that when she was a little girl and the family was stationed on Guam, earthquakes and lightning storms were a common occurrence. It was the same kind of sounds and flashes as she heard now. She instinctively braced herself for the ground to start shaking but it didn’t. Only the rumbles and flashes continued. Then she could hear faint popping sounds.
Val flung off the sheet and fumbled for the lamp. It was nine o’clock at night. Wait, let me think. It all came back. Gideon had left early in the morning to go out on a raid with the Israelis. The day had dragged by torturously. Dr. Hartmann had come by to check on her again and given her a shot to settle her down. She had fallen into a deep sleep.
“Mommy, come up to the roof,” Roxanne cried, running into the room.
By the time they got up, Grover had joined a choir of dogs howling from one end of the Sharon Plain to the other. From their elevation they could make out a horizon being lit by cannon fire some seven or eight miles away. From here the sounds and sights seemed like a playland.
The bombardment went on incessantly. Nearly an hour passed before any of them moved or spoke.
“Is Daddy there?” Penny asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He’s looking for something,” Val answered.
Roxanne began to cry. Her mother held her tightly. “Daddy always makes it home,” Val said.
WHAT GIDEON HAD not anticipated was the speed with which the raid was executed. There was no dusting off a stack of old contingency plans, nor was there a surplus of battle-ready troops standing by. A dangerous target had been selected, one that would make all the necessary