“Do you really think he can get away with this utterly fantastic plan of his?”
“He’s a clever man.”
“Well … I’ll say one thing. This Ben Canaan doesn’t act like any Jew I’ve ever met. You know what I mean. You don’t particularly think of them in a capacity like his … or fighters … things of that sort.”
“How do you think of them, Kitty? The good old Indiana version. The little Jew boy named Maury who’s going to marry a little Jew girl named Sadie …”
“Oh, stop it, Mark! I’ve worked with enough Jewish doctors to know they are arrogant and aggressive people. They look down on us.”
“With what? An inferiority complex?”
“I’d buy that if you were talking about Germany.”
“What are you trying to say, Kitty-that we’re pure?”
“I’m saying no American Jew would trade places with a Negro or a Mexican or an Indian for that matter.”
“And I’m saying you don’t have to lynch a man to rip his insides out. Oh sure, the American Jews have it good, but just enough of your thinking and enough of two thousand years of being a scapegoat has rubbed off on them. Why don’t you argue it with Ben Canaan? He seems to know how to handle you.”
Kitty shot off the bed angrily. Then both she and Mark began to laugh. They were Mark and Kitty and they could not really be angry.
“Exactly what is this Mossad Aliyah Bet?”
“The word aliyah means to arise, go up, ascend. When a Jew goes to Palestine it is always referred to as an aliyah … always going higher than he was. Aleph or the letter a was used to designate the legal immigration. Bet or the letter b for the illegal. Therefore Mossad Aliyah Bet means Organization for Illegal Immigration.”
Kitty smiled. “My goodness,” she said, “Hebrew is such a logical language.”
For the next two days after Ari Ben Canaan’s visit Kitty was perturbed and restless. She would not admit to herself that she wanted to see the big Palestinian again. Mark knew Kitty well and sensed her irritation, but he pretended to carry on as though Ben Canaan had never entered the scene.
She did not exactly know what was disturbing her, except that Ben Canaan’s visit had left a strong impression. Was it that American conscience that Ben Canaan knew so well, or was she sorry about her anti-Jewish outburst?
Almost but not quite casually Kitty inquired when Mark expected to see Ari. Another time she made an unsubtle suggestion that it would be nice to go sightseeing in Famagusta. Then again she would grow angry with herself and resolve to wipe out any thought of Ari.
On the third night Mark could hear Kitty’s footsteps through the connecting door as she paced back and forth in her room.
She sat in the darkness in an overstuffed chair and puffed on a cigarette and decided that she would reason out the whole matter.
She did not like being drawn against her will into Ben Canaan’s strange world. Her entire approach to life had been sane, even calculating. “Kitty is such a sensible girl,” they always said of her.
When she fell in love with Tom Fremont and set out to win him it had all been a well-thought-out move. She ran a sensible home and served sensible meals on a sensible bud—
get. She planned to give birth to Sandra in the springtime and that had been sensible too. She stifled spur-of-the-moment impulses in favor of planned decisions.
These past two days seemed to make no sense to her at all. A strange man appeared from nowhere and told her an even stranger story. She saw that hard handsome face of Ari Ben Canaan with his penetrating eyes that seemed to read her mind mockingly. She remembered the sensation in his arms, dancing with him.
There was no logic to this at all. For one thing Kitty always felt uncomfortable around Jewish people; she had admitted as much to Mark. Then why did this thing continue to grow?
Finally she knew that she would continue to be disturbed until she saw Ari again and saw the camp at Caraolos. She decided that the way to beat this whole idea was to see him again and assure herself she was not mystically involved but had merely been jolted by a sudden and brief infatuation. She would beat Ari Ben Canaan at his own game on his own ground.
At breakfast the next morning Mark was not surprised when Kitty asked him to make an appointment with Ben Canaan for her to visit Caraolos.
“Honey, I was happy with the decision you made the other night. I wish you’d stick to it.”
“I don’t quite understand this myself,” she said.
“Ben Canaan called the shot. He knew you’d come around. Don’t be a damned fool. If you go to Caraolos, you’re in. Look … I’ll pull out, myself. We’ll leave Cyprus right away …”
Kitty shook her head.
“You’re letting your curiosity throw you. You’ve always been smart. What’s happening?”
“This sounds funny coming from me, doesn’t it, Mark, but it almost feels as if some force were pushing me. Believe me, I’m going to Caraolos to end all this … and not to start something.”
Mark told himself that she was hooked even though she was pretending she wasn’t. He hoped that whatever lay ahead would treat her kindly.
CHAPTER TEN: Kitty handed her passes to the British sentry at the gate and entered Caraolos at Compound 57, which was closest to the children’s compound.
“Are you Mrs. Fremont?”
She turned, nodded, and looked into the face of a young man who smiled and offered his hand. She thought that he
was certainly a much friendlier-appearing person than his compatriot.
“I am David Ben Ami,” he said. “Ari asked me to meet you. He will be along in a few moments.”
“Now what does Ben Ami mean? I’ve taken a recent interest in Hebrew names.”
“It means Son of My People,” he answered. “We hope that you will help us in ‘Operation Gideon.’”
“Operation Gideon?”
“Yes, that’s what I call Ari’s plan. Do you remember your Bible, Judges? Gideon had to select a group of soldiers to go against the Midianites. He picked three hundred. We have also picked three hundred to go against the British. I guess I may be stretching a point for the parallel and Ari does accuse me of being too sentimental.”
Kitty had braced herself for a difficult evening. Now she was disarmed by this mild-appearing young man. The day was closing and a cool breeze whipped up a swirl of dust. Kitty slipped into her topcoat. On the other side of the compound she could make out the unmistakable towering figure of Ari Ben Canaan crossing over to meet her. She drew a deep breath and steadied herself to fight off the same electric sensation she had felt the first time she saw him.
He stopped before her and they nodded silently. Kitty’s eyes were cold. She was letting him know, without a word, that she had come to accept a challenge and she had no intention of losing.
Compound 57 consisted mostly of the aged and very religious. They passed slowly between two rows of tents filled with dirty and unkempt people. The water shortage, Ben Ami explained, made bathing virtually impossible. There was also insufficient diet. The inmates appeared weak, some angry, some dazed, and all haunted by ghosts of the dead.
They stopped for a moment at an opened tent where a wrinkled old specimen worked on a wood carving. He held it up for her to see. It was a pair of hands, clasped in prayer and bound by barbed wire. Ari watched her closely for a sign of weakening.
It was squalid, filthy, and wretched here, but Kitty had prepared herself to accept even worse. She was beginning to be convinced that Ari Ben Canaan held no mysterious power over her.
They stopped once more to look into a large tent used as a synagogue. Over the entrance was a crudely made symbol of the Menorah, the ritual candelabra. She stared at the strange sight of old men swaying back and forth and reciting weird prayers. To Kitty it seemed another world. Her gaze