He paused and stared at her. “I know what you are going to say,” she said. “I feel it coming.”
“I was going to say that you do not understand because…
“I am not a sabra.”
“I knew it.”
She got up furiously and walked up and down. “And what of the Arabs?” she said harshly. “They will torpedo your vote. You know they will. Who is going to sacrifice good oil to their displeasure?”
“The risk is there — we must take it. It is the only way.”
“It will end with a massacre.”
“That we can face up to as the worst extremity; but we sabras are not going to stretch out our little white throats to the Arab’s knife. But we know that in the longest run we must live with them, cooperate with them. At the moment British oil interests won’t let us. That’s the point.”
They returned to the car and resumed their journey in silence. What followed immediately gave some point to his words, and also made him regret fleetingly that he had chosen, for his own pleasure, the longest way round to reach the kibbutz, for the road ahead suddenly seethed with infantry and command cars. It was a checkpost. They were searched and re-searched. As they stood under interrogation with arms raised, he grinned at her and said: “You see?”
She looked at him seriously and said: “I’m glad you didn’t bring your pistol on this trip.”
Once cleared, he drove on but downcast. “Is anything wrong?” she asked at last, almost timidly.
He sighed. “Tales of murder and sabotage,” he said. “The situation has become black for the British. It is a matter of time before they throw in the sponge and hide behind the Arab vote.” She sighed. “But isn’t that part of the plan, to make it black?” He nodded. “I’ve lost two of my oldest friends. They were killed in a raid last night.” She said: “I see.” They drove down the winding roads towards the sea in silence.
Once they reached the coast road he said: “I apologize for my gloom. Look, let’s have a glass of wine, shall we? And then a few minutes’ rest. We shan’t get back before midnight anyway with these checkposts. What do you say?” “If you wish,” she replied. “Good,” he said with false heartiness, and turned down a curving dusty road among the dunes. In the little Roman harbour there was a small restaurant with a dance-floor. They sat under a vine and he ordered wine. With the first glass she felt its warmth. The soft Levantine jazz mixed with the sounds of the sea.
“Come, let us dance once — we don’t get much of this at the kibbutz or at training camps.” She was undecided.
“Dancing?” she said, “It belongs to the old world, the past. I think I have forgotten how.” He smiled. “I’ll remind you,” he said. He took her softly in his arms and they danced awhile without speaking. Back at their table once more she sipped her wine and said, “Good Lord!” “What?” She laughed. “It’s going to my head.” He gazed at her with a sorrowful grin. “So you can actually smile,” he said. “How marvellous. Thank you.” He stood up and once more they danced. Then abruptly he took her hand and led her down to the beach among the dunes. “There are such lovely shells on this beach,” he said. “I must gather some for the children.”
There was a little Arab cemetery, long since abandoned; she sat among the tombs and smoked while he wandered about for a while. At last he came back and said: “You know what?” “What?” “The sea is as warm as milk.” She lay back, gazing up at the dark sky. Suddenly he sat down beside her and took her elbows in his strong hands, pinioning her, and began to kiss her. She tried to resist and turn her face away, but it was no good. She felt his hands on her body, fumbling with her clothes, opening them. “Aaron,” she said, but he had covered her body with his own now, and all she could see were his dark eyes staring into her own. A thin misty drizzle had begun to fall. She lay as if doped, and when at last he raised himself on his elbow to look at her, he saw that her eyes were full of tears. She turned her face away with a groan. “Oh, can’t you see,” she cried, “that I’m exhausted — finished!” He shook his head. “No, you’ll come awake. It’s only shock and fatigue — and probably mathematics.”
She struck him wildly across the face and he sat up, nursing his cheek, but without anger. He considered her for a moment, then, taking her hand, pressed it to his cheek. “I am going to swim,” he said. In a flash he had disappeared into the glimmer of the beach. She rose in a fury and found her way back to the car. In a little while he came, his mop of wet hair standing upright. He had unearthed a towel from somewhere and wore it round his neck. He entered the car and turned to her.
“Judith, darling,” he said in a low voice full of self-reproach, but she turned on him and shouted: “Oh, if you are now going to be apologetic and penitential I’ll hit you — I can’t stand stupidity as well as mawkishness.” He bit his lip but said nothing. “Well?” she cried, “What are we waiting for?” He started the engine and switched on the lights. They drove in silence down the bumpy tracks to the main road and turned northwards for Haifa. At night the checkposting was even more elaborate and infuriating. They submitted with expressionless faces. Only after Nazareth, where the hills started to climb away northwards, did things begin to thin out a little.
The mountain air was good and keen. Aaron drove in thoughtful silence, gazing at her from time to time, darting little enquiring glances from under his dark eyebrows. But she felt weary and upset and her whole body trembled with nervous fatigue; the sudden sexual intimacy had burned up inside her like a torch, irradiating not only her body but her bruised mind. All the old melancholy phantoms she had been fighting throughout these long months of lonely reflection and hard work rose up from the dark recesses into which she had driven them. How could he not understand that she was still not free from the dreadful shock and melancholia of the death camp? In the shadow of her memories she felt old, used-up, exhausted. She leaned her head on the sidescreen of the car and slept as they rumbled through the night together.
As they reached the head of the pass he slowed up a little and studied the dark contours of the valley below them, bathed in its violet mist. Here and there faint lights shone. But the two great escarpments to the north and south of Ras Shamir were pricked out by the tiny star-clusters of light which marked the settlements lining the dark border: “Brisbane”, “Brooklyn”, “Cape Town”, “Soho”, “Naples”, “Odessa”. He repeated their nicknames, smiling to himself at their old familiarity, and remembering scraps of banter passed backwards and forwards through the old heliograph.
At last they came to the camp perimeter and were challenged by a sleepy figure with a torch who grunted his recognition as he examined their faces, before pulling back the gate and letting them drive in. The car rumbled slowly along the tree-lined darkness of the road and drew up at last near the first faintly etched shadow of a house. She was awake now; as soon as he had turned off the engine, the silence had nudged her fully awake. He went round to her side and opened the door. He seemed to be disposed to say something, though what it was she could not imagine. For that matter, neither could he, he simply could not formulate a phrase to express the mixture of ruefulness and concern which he felt. “Judith,” he said at last, but she was fastening up the old briefcase and smoothing down her crumpled frock. Then she said “Good-night” and turned on her heel to walk slowly away from him down the feebly-lit path.