Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [51]
During the day, elements of the Israeli Paratroop Brigade assembled from all parts of the country. Some had interrupted hard training and arrived at the staging area extremely tired. Yet they were the best available troops.
The raid went well in the opening stages. There were no natural barriers to cross at the border and the forward units moved over easily.
The Kalkilia police fort was illuminated by Israeli searchlights from two miles’ distance and support artillery fire opened up from a tank detachment.
In the normal flow of battle something always went awry. The plan sprang leaks and all hell broke loose. The sky stayed lit with cannon bursts until 0300 but small arms fire could be heard until daybreak.
Val and the girls had slept in fits and snatches. It was six in the morning when Val spotted Mr. Zimmerman, an assistant manager from the hotel, wheel his bicycle up the path toward the cottage. She was too terrified to move.
Mr. Zimmerman was a friendly old codger. He delighted in running messages to the Zadok cottage in exchange for a few words of gossip. Val had seen a concentration camp number tattooed on his arm—one of the first times she had seen such a thing. She cried softly for several nights and understood so much about Israel in that single incident.
“I just got a telephone call from Mr. Zadok,” he said. “He said to tell you he is all right and he would be home in a few hours.”
Val screamed and collapsed against him.
“Mr. Zadok was on the raid last night?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Oy, mein got. Sit down, Mrs. Zadok, please sit. I make you a glass tea. Oh, it was a very bad one. We had almost a hundred boys casualties. Nu, what can we do? Thanks got Mr. Zadok wasn’t hurt.”
The terrible wait was done. Val brought herself under control with the help of a wallop of that awful brandy. As color returned to her cheeks she managed a smile.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” Mr. Zimmerman said. “We’re closing the hotel down. If Mr. Zadok will come to my house this evening, I give him a key to the side entrance and show him the fuse box for his room. We want he should keep his office.”
When Mr. Zimmerman left Val rushed around the kitchen trying to find something to bake, something to clean, something to defrost. Strangely, as if they knew, the neighbors began to gather.
THE GIRLS ran toward the jeep and flung their arms about him.
“Better not touch me,” Gideon said, “I’m all stinky.”
He was, in fact, putrid. His eyes seemed far away, still reflecting a recent horror. He plopped down at the kitchen table. Val served him some cake and juice and shooed the neighbors out. He was too exhausted to chew. Gideon pulled himself up and swayed down the hall to the bedroom, made it to the edge of the bed, doubled over and held his face in his hands.
“Dad’s okay. He needs some rest,” Val said and closed the door. She wanted to go to him, but somehow couldn’t or didn’t. He was a naughty boy who had run out into the street and was pulled to the sidewalk by a mother who first kissed him, then slapped him. He didn’t have to put them through this.
Val was unable to temper her anger. “Well, I suppose you finally got to feel it,” she said. She really hadn’t wanted to say that. It just came out. “Well, I felt it too,” she went on acidly.
“Okay, I deserve to be kicked in the ass,” he mumbled.
“They’ve closed down the hotel,” she continued, wanting to hit him with bad news.
“Can’t it wait!” he snapped.
“Sure, it can wait.”
“I better take a shower and try to get some sleep.” He fumbled for the buttons of his combat jacket but his fingers would not function.
There was a period of quiet, long enough for the venom to pass from her. She came to him and sat on the floor before him and rested her head on his lap.
“Simon was killed. So was Ben Dror. Zev lost both of his legs.”
“Oh Christ,” Val sobbed.
“It was a real fuck-up.