Shooting at intercity transport began. There were already dead and wounded. The Palmach reserve units were recalled to service, and one morning on the corner of Ruppin Street and Keren Hakayemet Boulevard I overheard a conversation between two older guys. One of them said, I told my father this morning that I’d gone back to the Palmach, and he said that when you want to piss, your belly wants to, your eyes want to, your hands want to, but in the end what pisses is the putz.
I got out of there and that night went to see Tony, my school principal, whose life partner, Gustav, was a big expert on Fichte and Schelling, but here he swept Dizengoff Street with a big broom, and Tony would run after him with sandwiches so he’d eat, and in the meantime he taught me philosophy. Tony saw me coming, but her attention was fixed on Gustav and she got up onto the sidewalk and stood facing him, and she came up to his belt that was held in place by a nail he’d found in the road, and the chicken mayonnaise sandwich flew from her hand, and a dog barked, and she called Gustav liebchen, and that gentle giant bent and kissed her, and how much beauty there was in that kiss. And suddenly the image of the man who came to see my father came back to me. What was it in the man’s eyes then? Contempt or envy? Afterward they’d shouted in German. I was tired. I fell asleep walking and was unable to speak. Tony walked me to the corner of Keren Hakayemet and said, Go and sleep now, come back tomorrow only at nine, sleep, little one.
I returned the next day to Tony the principal, the most wonderful woman I’d ever met, she was standing facing the sea by a thick-branched tree in the yard of the school she had founded, and I told her I was joining the Palyam. She was angry and asked me to wait. She said I should wait until I had a matriculation certificate. I explained something. She was sad. I could see that she understood me, but still she didn’t agree.
Yochanan Krasner’s father, who was an important functionary in the Haganah and rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, told me that if I really wanted to enlist, I should go secretly to a small button shop on Dizengoff Street near Nordau Boulevard. I went there and said that the man with the Harley-Davidson had sent me, and the man in the shop said that he knows a man like that, his son’s called Yaki, and he knows him well, and I told him that his son’s name is Yochanan, and then his manner softened and he sent me to Ben-Yehuda Street near Vilna Street, to a shop that also sold buttons, and there a redheaded young man told me to come back the next day. I went back. He said, Listen kid, in the building you live in, there’s an office on the third floor. I was surprised. There were two apartments there — one belonged to Mrs. Kramsky and the other to Oded Nachmani, who worked in the Histadrut*.
I walked down the stairs from my parents’ apartment and knocked on the door. A guy opened it and asked for the password, I said, You know me, I live upstairs, and he slammed the door. I knocked again, he opened the door, and I asked, Does the man from the Histadrut live here? The guy said, Who’s asking, and I said, I think the password’s “buttons.” He asked, What buttons? I said, Round ones, and he said, Go to Nachalat Binyamin Street, next to Schwarz’s fabric shop, and ring twice, somebody will shout something and you sing the song “You have to ring twice, you have to wait a moment,” and do whatever the person who opens the door tells you.
That was the song they sang when the city filled up with new immigrants and they had to be housed in small apartments and there weren’t any telephones, and whoever wanted to see the new neighbor would ring twice. I sang “You have to ring twice,” and a short girl appeared who looked every which way before leading me into a dark hallway and putting a pillowcase over my head. We walked a short distance, climbed two floors, came down again and went up again in order to hoodwink the enemy, and the whole time she remained silent. I tried to speak, but she put her hand over my mouth through the pillowcase and stopped me, and I was finally led into an apartment. The pillowcase was removed and in the darkness I could see a few young men talking in whispers. One asked me, Who is “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth,’ and what is “A damsel, two damsels to every man,” and where is it taken from, and what does the acronym “Palmach” mean? They wanted to make sure I wasn’t an enemy. After I’d given them the correct answers, and they were particularly surprised that I knew that “The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth” meant the Prophet Isaiah’s son, they asked why I’d come. I lied and said that my parents were Revisionists*, and I also lied by telling them I was eighteen. They were pleased that a youngster from the other side of the political map wanted to enlist, and after a few more questions, with the room still darkened, they swore me in on the flag, the Bible, and a pistol. They gave me a brown round tin used for Atara coffee, and told me it contained a Mills bomb and I had to take a No. 7 bus from the central station on Geula Street, take the box as far as the seminar, and come back. I was scared by anyone who looked like a British detective. When I got back a man opened the tin and showed me that all it contained was an iron shot used by the Hapoel Tel Aviv athletes, and explained that it had been an exercise in courage. He told me to be at the central bus station in two days at eight in the morning.
I left a goodbye letter for my parents. At the station, not far from the main ticket office, stood a young man who’d apparently been soaked by the rain. He was holding a damp Davar newspaper, and his head was buried in it. I had to pass him three times at a slow walk and then approach him and ask him which bus goes to Netanya. I walked by him three times, counting my steps, I was excited, I halted, he gave me a squinty glance and pretended not to see me. I asked him if by any chance he knew which bus goes to Netanya. He lowered his paper and glanced at me and said, Young man, I’m not the information desk. I regained my senses and said, To work. To defense. To the kibbutz. To agricultural training. His expression changed and he looked behind him and to the sides, and said as if talking to someone else, We should go up. I answered, For we are well able to overcome it. He added, The usurper of the teacher’s prerogative, and I answered, Deserves to be bitten by a snake. He softened and became almost friendly and asked my name, and I told him. He turned around, took a sheet of paper from his pocket, studied it, and said, Don’t be sorry, I read a poem you sent to the editor Shlonsky, a great poet you won’t be, try something else.
Then he said, Listen, you make out like you’re going to Haifa with a ticket I’ll give you but you’re only going as far as Hadera. You get off and walk around by the toilets, and try to look like you’re from Hadera and don’t draw attention to yourself. Walk quietly toward the sea. I asked him how you don’t draw attention to yourself and how you look like you’re from Hadera. He folded up his newspaper and walked slowly back and forth, screwed up his eyes, as if he were facing the sun, and tried to draw his head into his hunched shoulders. People looked at him dumbfounded. Fortunately he didn’t see them and said, That’s how you walk. From Hadera you walk west, more or less, in the direction of the sea, you’ll smell it and in the distance you’ll see the Caesarea mosque, and from there go to Kibbutz Sdot Yam. And make sure you’re not seen. And if you’re stopped by the British, say you’re looking for antiquities.