Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [99]
Moreover, Nathan wondered, what kind of a Jewish farm was it without a proper synagogue? Also, the kibbutz raised hogs in secret. Furthermore, it was known that when the girls went to the Arab market in the villages, they would barter the kibbutz produce for camel meat, another forbidden food.
There was a building on the kibbutz that no one spoke of. Misha, who had had a year of military training, went into it immediately. When Misha told him casually that they were manufacturing guns and bombs, Nathan almost choked. There were constant comings and goings of groups of young people from settlements farther south. He learned they were members of the newly formed Jewish Defense Force, the Haganah, and Kibbutz Hermon was a training base for them.
Such disillusionments continued to pile up.
NATHAN BLUSHED when he was assigned to Malka, a very plump girl who likewise wore her shorts up to there, for rifle training. He had never held a gun before, and the very concept of it staggered his imagination. Guns were for goyim. His hands sweated whenever he touched a weapon. For three days Malka taught him to take the rifle apart, clean it, put it together, and squeeze the trigger without ammunition.
To conclude the instruction, he had to shoot ten rounds of live ammunition which was manufactured at the kibbutz. As he sighted in on the target, Malka stood over him with her big bare legs and he got so flustered he forgot his instructions. He jerked the trigger instead of giving it a slow clean pull, and he also forgot to keep his thumb tucked down. The rifle butt slammed into his shoulder, causing him to see stars, and at the same instant he jammed his thumb into his eye. He missed the target.
THE WEEKLY kibbutz meeting took place on Wednesday after dinner.
“Do we have any new business?” Ami Dan asked.
Nathan popped up.
“I have a matter which I would like to present for serious consideration,” he said.
“It is not customary for a comrade to participate if he is not a full member of the kibbutz, but we will make an exception. What is on your mind, Nathan?”
Nathan paced, stared like a righteous rabbi to set the frame of mind, then shook his index finger at them.
“I am thinking, comrades, what is the big megillah about the name Hermon? Why does such a mountain, belonging almost entirely to Arabs, have the distinction of having a kibbutz named after it?”
Most of the members gaped in disbelief. “The mountain has great biblical significance,” Ami Dan answered. “And it also happens to be where we are located.”
“Just how many Hermons will be enough?” Nathan went on without listening to Ami Dan. “What is it? A sacred mountain? Does God send down special blessings from Hermon?”
“Speak in Hebrew,” Ami Dan said testily; “it is a kibbutz rule.”
Nathan continued his harangue against the mountain in Yiddish.
“Would you kindly get to the point, Comrade Zadok.”
“I am thinking and with deep feelings, with which I am certain the comrades will be in agreement, that a kibbutz, to properly commemorate, should be named, instead, for a real person. I have in mind a martyr of Zionism. I am proposing that we change the name of the kibbutz to Kfar Gittleman, in memory of one who sacrificed her life to reach Eretz Israel. ...”
“You are out of order, Comrade Zadok.”
“What could be a more magnificent name and so simple a gesture? Kfar Gittleman,” Nathan continued. ...
“You are out of order.”
AFTER ROTATING Nathan to a dozen different jobs, none of which he performed successfully, Ami Dan realized it would only be a matter of time until Nathan would leave, voluntarily or otherwise. The members were growing impatient with him, even Bertha and Misha. Nathan was not a communal being. Some people simply weren’t cut out for kibbutz life, but no one ever showed less of a capacity to accept instruction or acknowledge criticism.
Ami Dan decided to press the issue by assigning Nathan to the most dangerous job on the kibbutz, and ordered him a month’s