‘What about you, David?’ Giovanni asked.
‘I get by, I guess,’ David replied with a boyish grin. ‘My pursuits have been a little less glamorous than Italian and French. Not much call for ordering a beer in Koine or Aramaic!’ David’s playful demeanour made him look much younger than his thirty-nine years.
‘I’ve been trying to converse with the villagers of Mar’Oth in Arabic. All I can say is that they are very tolerant,’ Giovanni said. ‘You were a platoon commander in the Six Day War?’
‘A very good one,’ Yossi replied, always ready to give his son credit.
‘Have you ever wondered if the Omega Scroll was amongst those you liberated from the Rockefeller Museum, David?’ Patrick loved a good conspiracy.
‘The Professor and I,’ David replied, using his father’s title as a term of endearment, ‘have often wondered about that. It was pretty chaotic and we had enough trouble securing the building without counting and checking what was in the vault.’
The Professor’s face was inscrutable. Yossi Kaufmann had seen some recent Mossad reports indicating that the original and one copy of the Omega Scroll had indeed been in the vaults.
‘You should tell Giovanni the story, David,’ Patrick prompted.
‘Oh, I’m sure Giovanni doesn’t want to hear about the war,’ David replied reluctantly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Giovanni replied, mindful of the loss of David’s brother. ‘I don’t want to raise any painful memories.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ Marian said gently. ‘We miss Michael but we’ve come to terms with his loss. It just makes us all the more determined for peace.’
‘But it can’t be peace at the expense of one side,’ Yossi warned. ‘There will never be peace until we reach a solution with the Palestinians that is equitable for both sides. The Palestinians must be given their own State. On the other hand, those who criticise the Jewish nation for warmongering have very little understanding of how reluctant we have been to fight, how divided the Cabinet was in 1967 and that the Palestinians are not the only ones to have suffered terrible losses. In the end we were given little choice. Even today there are still some who want to push us into the sea and if nothing else, the 1967 war serves as a reminder of how futile that approach is. Wars are not the answer,’ Yossi said sadly. ‘But when the Jewish nation is pushed into a corner we will fight with every means at our disposal.’
‘Yes, but David is such a reluctant hero,’ Marian added with a warm smile. ‘Perhaps I should start, Patrick?’
‘Let me refill your glass,’ Patrick replied, reaching for the red wine.
Acre
From the day Yossi and Marian had arrived in Acre as teenagers on a fishing trawler after their escape from Vienna in 1938, they had both been captivated by the old city with its Crusader walls, minarets, mosques, souks and the great Khans, where the merchants of Italy and Provence had plied their trade. By 1967 they had found a modest holiday house that was close to the ancient harbour. It was on a narrow, twisting street and one of a row of houses that dated back to the Turkish Ottoman Empire of the eighteenth century.
Marian Kaufmann had set the table simply. Two candles representing God’s commandments: zachor, to remember, and shamor, to observe the Sabbath; a glass of wine and two loaves of challah that would remain covered with a white cloth until after the blessings. Marian had long ago lost her own Jewish faith behind the forbidding bluestone walls and wire of the Nazi charnel house at Mauthausen, the concentration camp in Austria where both Yossi’s and her own parents had been brutally murdered. Despite this, Marian had a deep respect for Yossi’s beliefs and she was happy to observe the Jewish ritual. Yossi and Marian had agreed that both of their sons would receive instruction in the Torah, but the matter of faith had been left to the boys to decide for themselves. David, Marian knew, would never have time for religion. Michael, blond, tall and three years older than David, had the same strong faith as his father. Given the boys’ natures it could have been expected to be the other way round – Michael was brash and aggressive; David, mischievous but thoughtful.
Yossi removed the white cloth from the bread and holding one loaf in each hand, he blessed it: Barukh atah Adonai Elohaynu melekh ha-olam – Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe. Ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz. Amein – Who brings forth bread from the earth. Amen.
Like the Christians and the Muslims, it was a ‘thank you’ to the God of Abraham, the same God for all the faiths. The same God and the same hope for peace, yet once again the war clouds were gathering over the cities of the Jews, Christians and Arabs.
‘How is the flying going, Michael?’ Yossi asked.
‘Very well,’ Michael responded enthusiastically. ‘By the end of next week I will have two hundred hours on the Mirage,’ he added proudly.
‘Do you think there will be a war, Yossi?’ Marian asked, dreading the thought.
‘I hope not. Going to war with the Arabs will not solve anything. I think it’s time both sides pulled back from this madness. It’s time we both tried to walk a mile in the other man’s shoes. Palestinians simply want the opportunity to work in peace and make a contribution, but a man without a country is a man without dignity and until we reach agreement on the Palestinian State, the killing will continue.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Michael said. ‘I think it’s about time we taught these lying Arab bastards a lesson, one they won’t forget in a hurry!’
‘Michael Kaufmann! I will have none of that language in this house.’ Marian had some clear rules when it came to swearing. Yossi suppressed a smile. The language in the officers’ mess would no doubt be a lot worse. Yossi was proud of his sons but he, like Marian, had often reflected on how very different their sons were. It was almost as if there was an old soul and a young soul.
Michael was the young soul; full of the enthusiasm and invincibility of youth, a zest for war and adventure without the wisdom to consider the consequences. All he had ever wanted to do was fly, and after graduating at the top of his pilot’s course he had been assigned to a conversion course for the Dassault Mirage III, dubbed by the Israeli pilots as the Shahak, the ‘skyblazer’. After achieving another graduation first, Michael had been posted to the Israeli Defense Force’s premier fighter squadron, the 101st, at the huge Hatzhor Air Base. Yossi knew that if it came to war the 101st would be the first into combat. David was the old soul. Partway through an archaeology degree at the Hebrew University at Mount Scopus, he too was in the Reserves as an infantry platoon commander. Yossi also knew from bitter experience that all wars were vicious, but for the infantry they were particularly so, especially if it came to hand-to-hand fighting.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ Michael continued, unabashed by his mother’s rebuke, ‘but the Arab scramble time is at least twice that of ours. We’ll have ’em on toast!’
‘What about you, David? Are you looking forward to teaching the Arabs a lesson?’ Marian asked.
David shrugged. ‘If we have to fight, we have to fight. But I don’t agree with Mikey. The Palestinians have lost their homes and their livelihood and I guess you’re right,’ he said, looking at his father. ‘They’re just as much a family people as we are. At the end of the day we took their land. They need a country, too.’
‘I always knew there was a reason I didn’t go to university,’ Michael retorted. ‘They’re Arabs, for hell’s sake.’
Marian sighed. Always it was war – race against race, white against black, Arab against Jew, Christian against Muslim, faith against faith, hatred over tolerance – a vicious and unbroken cycle of escalating violence. It was in man’s power to break it, but he had chosen not to.
Jerusalem
Lieutenant David Kaufmann knocked before entering Brigadier General Menachem Kovner’s office.