“But the sadness of my son is my fault, Ari.” Barak licked his lips and swallowed. “Jordana has become a great friend of Kitty Fremont.”
Ari started at the mention of her name.
“She has become a saint. She visits us when she is in the Huleh. It is too bad you haven’t seen her.”
“Father … I …”
“Don’t you think I see the hunger in that woman’s eyes for you? Is this the way a man gives love, by hiding in the desert? Yes, Ari! Let’s have it all out now. You’ve rut and hidden’ from her. Say it. Say it to me and say it to yourself.”
Ari got off the edge of the bed and walked away.
“What is this terrible thing in your heart that keeps you from going to this woman and telling her your heart breaks for her?”
Ari felt bis father’s burning gaze at his back. He turned slowly with his eyes lowered. “She told me once I would have to need her so badly that I would have to crawl.”
“Then crawl!”
“I cannot crawl! I don’t know how! Can’t you see, Father … I can never be the man she wants.”
Barak sighed sadly. “And that is where I have failed you, Ari. You see, I would have crawled to your mother a million times. I would.crawl to her because I need her in order to live. She is my strength. God help me, Ari, I have been a party to the creation of a breed of men and women so hard they refuse to know the meaning of tears and humility.”
“She once said that to me,” Ari whispered.
“You have mistaken tenderness for weakness. You have mistaken tears for dishonor. You have made yourself believe that to depend on another person is to retreat. You are so blind that you cannot give love.”
“So, I cannot do what I cannot do,” Ari cried,
“And I am sorry for you, Ari. I am sorry for you and I am sorry for myself.”
The next day Ari carried his father in his arms to his car and drove him to Tel Hai, to the very spot at which he and his brother Akiva had crossed to Palestine more than half a century before.
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The graves of the Guardsmen were there at Tel Hai, the first Jews to bear arms at the turn of the century in a roving defense of Jewish settlements against Bedouins. It was as a Guardsman, Barak was remembering, that he had met Sarah at Rosh Pinna.
The stones of the dead formed two lines, and i there were a dozen plots waiting for those Guardsmen still alive. Akiva’s remains had been removed from Elijah’s Point to this place of honor. The plot next to Akiva was reserved for Barak.
Ari carried his father beyond the graves to where the huge stone statue of a lion stood looking down upon the valley, the symbol of a king protecting the land. On the base of the statue they read the words: “IT IS GOOD TO DIE FOR ONE’S COUNTRY.”
Barak looked down at the valley. Settlements were everywhere. A town was springing up below them with thousands of new settlers. The father and the son lingered at Tel Hai until darkness fell and they watched the lights go on, ringing the valley with a fortress of determination. Yad El-the Hand of God-stood in their center. A settlement of tough new youngsters had just broken ground at Gonen far below; they lived in tents just a few yards from the Syrian border. The lights of Gonen went on too.
“It is good to have a country to die for,” Barak said.
Ari carried his father down from the hill.
Two days later Barak Ben Canaan died in his sleep and he was taken back to Tel Hai and buried next to Akiva.
CHAPTER FOUR: In the last stages of the War of Liberation, Dov Landau joined the army of Israel and took part in Operation Ten Plagues against the Egyptians. His bravery in the storming of Suweidan won him a field commission. For several months he stayed in the desert as one of Colonel Ben Canaan’s Beasts of the Negev. Ari recognized the boy’s obvious talents and sent him north for tests. The army then asked Dov to go to the Technical Institute at Haifa and study specialized courses for the ambitious water projects being planned for the redemption of the Negev. Dov proved to be a brilliant scholar.
He had. completely burst out of his former darkness. Now he was warm and filled with humor and showed uncommon understanding for those people who suffered. Still rather slight in stature, with sensitive features, Dov had become a handsome young man. He and Karen were deeply in love.
The young romance was plagued with constant separations, uncertainty and of course the eternal tension. The land was in a turmoil and so were they; each had his separate serious 580
duties. It was an old story in Israel, it was the story of An and Dafna and the story of David and Jordana. Each time they saw each other the desire and the frustration grew. Dov, who worshiped Karen, became the stronger of the two.
When he reached his twenty-first birthday he was a captain in the corps of engineers and was considered one of the most promising officers in his field. His time was spent studying at the Technical Institute and at the Weizmann Research Institute at Rehovot.
Karen left Gan Dafna after the War of Liberation and also went into the Army. There she continued nurses’ training. She had gained valuable experience in working with Kitty and was able to finish her basic training quickly. Nursing suited Karen. She wanted someday to follow in Kitty’s footsteps and specialize in caring for children. She was stationed in a hos-pitai in the Sharon. It was convenient, for she was able to hitch a ride to Jerusalem to Kitty when Kitty was there and to get to Haifa frequently to see Dov.
Karen Hansen Clement grew from a beautiful girl into a magnificent woman. She was striking perfection, with the tenderness and kindness which had characterized her youth following her into maturity.
In the depths of Kitty’s mind the thought sometimes rose that Karen might come with her to America, but it was pure wishful thinking. In more realistic moments she knew that Karen did not need her. She had done her job for the girl just as she had done it for Israel. Karen was a part of Israel now, too deeply rooted to be torn away. And Kitty knew that she did not need Karen now. Once she believed she would never be able to part from the girl. But that void, the emotional starvation in Kitty, had been filled by years of unselfish devotion to “her children.”
Kitty not only knew she could leave Karen, but she dared hope that normalcy and true happiness awaited her somewhere, sometime, again.
No, for Karen and herself, Kitty had no fears about leaving Israel. But there was one fear-a fear for Israel itself.
The Arabs sat at Israel’s borders, licking their wounds and waiting for that day they would pounce on the little nation and destroy her in their much-advertised “second round.”
The Arab leaders handed their masses guns instead of plowshares. Those few who saw the light of Israel and wanted to make peace were murdered. The old harangues poured from the Arab press, from its radio, its leaders, and from the Moslem pulpits.
The Arab people, already bled dry by willful men, were
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most magnificent garden on earth, for he saw Karen running toward him from her hospital tent.
“Dov! Dov!” she cried, and raced over the bare brown knoll and flung herself into his waiting arms and they held each other tightly, their hearts pounding in excitement and joy with the feel of each other.
They held hands as Karen took Dov to the water tank; he washed his sweaty face and took a long drink. Then Karen led him away from the settlement to a path which led beyond the knoll where some Nabataean ruins stood. It was the forward outpost, right on the border marker, and the favorite meeting place of the single boys and girls.
Karen gave a signal to the guard that she would take the watch and the guard left knowingly. They picked their way through, the ruins until they came to the enclosure of an ancient temple and there they waited until the guard was out of sight. Karen peered out at the field through the barbed wire. Everything was quiet.