The Covenant Read online

  And then he saw liana. Her curls had been pulled up and back into a severe chignon on the top of her head, making her face look heartbreakingly older. Tiny and graceful, full of movement and joy, he felt his heart leap up with pleasure at the reality that such a beautiful creature existed and she was his.

  Then all the groups made concentric circles, their colorful pink, fuchsia and magenta costumes interweaving, exploding into a kaleidoscope of color. Jon stared in wonderment and appreciation, seeing only liana, delighted at every practiced movement of her knees and elbows as she went through her simple routine.

  When he took her into his arms afterward, he felt her body exude the dew of happiness and exertion.

  “Was I good? Was I, Aba?!”

  He hugged her. “The best. I took pictures, so Ima can see too.”

  At the mention of her mother, Jon felt her hands hold him a little tighter. “Ima will like what I did?”

  “Of course! She’ll be so happy!”

  It was already getting dark as she skipped beside him to the car for the trip back home, chattering nonstop. As the car door clicked shut, Jon turned to face his daughter in the backseat, double-checking if her seat belt was fastened. As his eyes met hers, he saw the dimples in her cheeks deepen and her face light up.

  His little girl. He’d left the clinic at the last possible moment, annoyed and irritated at having to cut his workday short, begrudging the time. He’d found her sitting dejected and miserable in day care. This pregnancy was taking a real toll on her, he realized, leaning over to pat her hand and touch her cheeks, which blushed the same pretty color as her tights. It took so little to make her happy, he thought, ashamed, vowing silently to spend more time with her until things got back to normal.

  He turned around, automatically reaching for his own seat belt, then stopped, thinking of Dov Kalmanovitch—the first victim of the Intifada—who had been forced to open his seat belt with a broken arm as a Molotov cocktail turned him into a flaming torch. By the time he’d freed himself, three-quarters of his body had been left with third-degree burns, and his face—it had simply been erased.

  Jon remembered meeting the man in Hadassah’s burn unit. He and his pretty, young wife, who had stood by her husband with an iron will throughout his miraculous and incredibly painful recovery, had gone on to live their lives, to have more children. The power of human resilience as well as the depths of human frailty were so unpredictable. You could never tell how a person pushed to extremes would behave.

  What would Elise do, he wondered, if—God forbid—something should happen to me? And what, he thought, his arm quivering with a sudden strange cold as he fit the key into the ignition, would either of us do if something should happen to liana? He felt his eyes sting.

  It was unthinkable. Slowly, he released the seat belt.

  There were two ways to get home. The first was the shortest and easiest: a twenty-minute ride through the new tunnel that would leave them practically on their doorstep. Or the tortuous, ninety-minute detour that would take them almost into Tel Aviv. The tunnel had been built to avoid conflicts with Palestinian townships as well as the miserable shantytowns still called refugee camps, although most of their inhabitants had never known any other home.

  He switched on the news. All the roads were open, things were quiet. He made the left turn toward the tunnel, passing the shopping center in Kiryat Yovel and those new high-rise monsters. He drove uphill past the Egged bus terminal and the Arab grocery stores of Beit Tsafafa until the white expanse of the buildings of Gilo came into view, the red-tiled roofs of the little houses lining the entrance to the wadi. There was the Mishav building and the telephone company building with its colorful tiles, and the strange building without windows, which conventional wisdom held was the headquarters of the Israeli Secret Service. The trampiada, or hitchhiking station, was coming up. He looked to see if there was anyone waiting, but a bus must have just come by, because it was surprisingly empty. He passed the army roadblock checking cars coming in from the opposite direction from Gush Etzion and Hebron that wished to enter Jerusalem. liana waved at the young soldiers, and they smiled and waved back.

  After the last house in Gilo, a new fence had gone up, about a kilometer before the first tunnel. As he followed the road upward, he saw the troops encamped on the shoulders of the road, almost unseen. From that vantage point, they had a good strategic view of the entire area, he thought, exhaling, revealing to himself just how tense he really was.

  There was the first tunnel. It was only seven hundred meters long, short enough not to interfere with radio signals, so that the music he was playing continued. He emerged onto a bridge—the place where the first shootings had taken place. Terrorist snipers equipped with long-range rifles had taken up positions in the peaceful homes of Bethlehem’s Christian neighborhood of Beit Jala, firing at passing cars as one would at ducks in a shooting gallery. Now a new barrier was going up to protect motorists, thick white polyester sheets that reminded him of Venetian blinds. They seemed flimsy compared to the enormous stone barriers ahead on the second part of the bridge. Apparently, the bridge couldn’t handle such weight all the way across.

  There was the second tunnel coming up. He entered, and the car radio went dead. It was very long, almost two kilometers. He looked at the familiar graffiti on the wall, LOVE YOU KEREN, someone had written, and again he wondered, as he did each time he passed it, did that mean “I love you, signed Keren”? or “I love you, Keren, girl of my dreams”? Was our Keren the graffiti expert, or the object of the foolhardy and industrious artist’s affections?

  He would probably never know. But, then again, you could never tell. Someone in the War of Independence had written his name on a wall on the way to the besieged Jerusalem and years later a songwriter had written a popular song about him. People had looked him up and he’d become quite famous for a time. Maybe immortality was also waiting just around the corner for our Keren, or the one who loved her, he thought, grinning.

  He emerged into the cool night air and fluorescent lights. Up ahead was the Efrat junction, where one took a right to Gush Etzion and a left to the Dehaishe shantytown and Bethlehem.

  He turned right, his heart skipping a beat. Just ahead, past the large Jewish townships of Efrat and Elazar, was the most dangerous stretch of all. It was there the road grew narrow and dark, and traffic thinned. On either side of the road thick, beautiful olive trees—trees he had always loved—had become sinister terrorist camouflage. Just months before, terrorists had used them as cover, attacking a young family on their way home from a wedding. Three people had been killed. Afterward, the army had begun to bulldoze them, but do-gooder rabbis from America had organized protests with the local orchard owners, blocking the bulldozers and helping to replant them.

  He glanced back nervously at liana, who was half asleep. Then, as was his custom, he took out his cell phone and dialed Elise.

  She picked up immediately. “Jon?”

  “Yes.”

  “How was it?”

  “Oh, Elise, if you just could have seen her . . . She was so beyond thrilled. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think her feet touched the floor at all!”

  She laughed. “So where are you?”

  “I’m just before the turnoff to Maaleh Sara. I’ll be home in less than ten minutes. liana’s practically asleep,” he whispered, wanting to keep it that way.

  “All right. See you soon. Love you to the moon,” she added cheerfully.

  But he might not have heard her, she thought, because he didn’t answer “and back again.”

  Chapter Five

  Maaleh Sara,

  Judea Monday, May 6, 2002

  7:03 P.M.

  AND THIS is what Elise will remember: the phone a lifeless, plastic corpse in her hand; and her hand suddenly old, shaking, as if with Parkinson’s. She will remember too the infinite slowness of the second hand as it struggles like a fly through honey from five to six, and from six to seven . . . She will
remember thinking: ten minutes, that’s all the ride should take, if everything was all right.

  And why shouldn’t it be, after all? She will not remember getting painfully out of bed, standing by the window, her eyes peering into the distance, her ears straining to pick up the crunch of car wheels over pebbles, the gentle suck of rubber meeting tar.

  But she will remember the moment she knew that the ten minutes had passed, the moment that the innocent, quiet driveway was transformed into something dangerous and sinister. And she’ll recall the frantic redialing of Jon’s cell phone, the heartstopping denouement of each hopeful ring, ring, ring as it fell into an impersonal silence that settled in her suddenly hollow chest.

  The act of calling her neighbor Joshua, the yishuvs security officer, with his access to special beepers, and unlisted army intelligence phone numbers and a bulletproof four-by-four, she will not recall. It was, after all, what needed to be done; it was the part in the scenario that seemed already written and acted, almost will-less, along with the knowledge that he’d take his car and drive out to where Jon had last called, and in minutes, a mere breathing interval, she’d know.

  She will not want to remember that some part of her already knew and that the knowing felt like a strange, hot wind, the kind that made one’s face shine, sunburnt, kissed by acid fear. The time it actually took Joshua to get back to her will not be remembered as it was, a mere fifteen minutes. It will feel like four seasons: spring-summer, the idea that soon there would be two cars in the driveway, Joshua’s and Jon’s, and both would be waving and smiling. And Jon would get out and walk around the side of the car to take liana out of her seat belt and help her out of the car. And she would see her baby in the pink leotard run to her as she held out her arms. And they would talk and laugh, and provide explanations of harmless mishaps—flat tires, broken carburetor valves—and the great fear in her heart would rise like smoke and dissipate as she held her husband and child in her arms.

  She will look back longingly at that season, and remember how quickly it passed, like any joyous summer, and how the autumn engulfed and transformed it.

  She will barely remember that transition, or how her knees grew soft and pliable, unable to hold the suddenly unbearable burden of her own motionless weight and how she sank like a parachute divested of its human cargo, a heap upon the floor while the world, her life, swirled around her like a debris-filled cosmic ring aimlessly circling some distant planet.

  And she will never forget when winter came, full-blown, knocking at her door. She’ll recall in minute detail the moment of hesitation before answering that knock, a moment felt by every Israeli who sees army uniforms outside their door; a moment when the idea of not opening it seems to hold a solution, a way of keeping the horror at bay. With strange, almost frightening clarity, she’ll remember the sudden confidence that flooded her at that moment, coming out of nowhere, in the simple idea that everything, despite appearances, was going to be all right; that it would be something difficult, but not catastrophic; something needing treatment, yes, but benign and curable. An injury. A slight blood loss. A fright. A near-miss. A mistake, soon to be corrected. This was the idea that propelled her to the door. And even as she opened it, she will remember not being convinced she wouldn’t find Jon with liana in his arms on the other side, smiling, liana in her tutu, with flowers in her hair . . .

  The notion that disaster does not—cannot—come so close to home; that it stops at the doorsteps of TV strangers, next-door neighbors, the glossy pages of international news magazines; that it is held back by the breakwaters of unseen, benevolent walls that jut up from interstices that have—all one’s life—succeeded in keeping one distinct and separate from disaster and unbearable pain, is what keeps us sane. It is the idea that we know such things can happen in the world, but that they will never happen to us. Not to us. And even though we watch the interviews with prying newsmen probing private grief, stare like voyeurs at the tear-stained faces of unknown victims, hear their cracking voices, choked with phlegm and misery . . . still, don’t we all secretly tell ourselves: But what has it to do with me?

  It is this idea, this comfort, that shatters forever when Elise finally turns the handle and pulls back the door from its frame.

  The security officer Joshua, flanked by two army men and the yishuvs rabbi—whose kind face seemed kinder, whose gray beard seemed grayer—stands there looking at her. There is no Jon. No liana. That knowledge washes over the scene like a reality-remover, all colors fading, her own presence suddenly suspect.

  She has no business in this scene, is not here, does not wish to be part of it. The rejection is so strong it turns to fury. Everything seems a little darker, the bodies indistinct, their voices lost in some strange vacuum, like one of those strange silent films in which everything takes place in soundless slow motion. She reaches out for the doorpost simply to feel its solid mass, and suddenly can’t find it, the oak slithering out of her hand, smooth as snakeskin, as her hand slides down, down. And then, her eyes are closed, and she knows that in a minute her feet will give way.

  It isn’t unpleasant, this sudden oblivion, the sense of holding on to a friend, her body held firmly and kindly against other human beings. She lets the darkness enter, and feels herself stilled, comforted. Small sounds enter the quiet, unexpected night. Words, with an upward lilt, a murmur of concern, instructions, conflicting suggestions that gnaw at her. Someone hands her water, or tea—a glass, at any rate—and she is sitting now, a chair surprisingly beneath her. She feels light flood back in as she opens her eyes. She feels embarrassed and responsible for the anxious looks on the faces that peer into hers, and this finds its way into an inappropriate smile. She smiles sheepishly as she faces these good men, wanting to be strong. She presses her hand over her stomach. Needing to be strong.

  An ambulance siren wails.

  Alive! she thinks. If there is an ambulance . . . But then the medics crowd through the doorway, and the security officer and the rabbi move aside for them, and they take out a stretcher, and needles. But she will acquiesce no longer, be passive no longer.

  “No!” she shouts, and for a moment all activity ceases, and they turn to her, questioningly. She sees that they do not understand what this means, this “no” of hers. No, don’t touch me? No, don’t tell me the terrible truth? No, rewrite reality? What is this then, this “no” of hers, dredged up from the bottom of a dark place, the first word she speaks into the light?

  But she gets no answer, neither from them nor from herself Doesn’t expect any. And besides, it wasn’t really the question she wanted to ask, she thinks. She is completely fine now. She is rational, sane, not hysterical. She sets her face into sensible lines, removing the smile. She leans forward, elbows on the chair arms, her back straight. She speaks in low, sensible tones, just loud enough to make herself heard, just loud enough for them to wait a moment with the needle that will send her back to forgetful oblivion. It is not that she is averse to going there, mind you. She looks forward to it. But not just yet, she thinks. She has questions to ask, needs information.

  “I feel all right now. I have some questions, please . . .”

  She sees them exchange doubtful glances, but also that their bodies relax for a moment, the weight shifting from both feet to one, the arms dropping, the fingers outspread, flexed.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  The security officer comes forward first. “Elise, I called the army outpost near the junction. They confirmed that there had been an ambush. That Jon’s car was hit . . .”

  A small moan escapes her throat and all reason flees. Now she is not living in her head, but in her stomach, in her bowels, a primitive life that does not want to know any details, any facts, greedy and desperate to feed on images: bodies, in any condition. Some instinct makes her understand that she cannot scream out this demand; that it would stop the flow of information, and this she does not want.

  With supreme effort, she asks: “Can I see them?
”

  The army men, two young officers, handsome and lean in clean uniforms, their smooth, shaven faces momentarily wrinkled by extreme concern, step forward.

  “Mrs. Margulies, when we got to the car, there were no bodies. The car was riddled with bullets, it had some dark red stains, but there were no bodies. We think, perhaps, they might have escaped. That the car was already empty when it was shot up . . . We don’t know. Our men are out there now, looking for them.”

  Her body flooded with relief. No bodies! If they ran from the car, they were all right! They were out there. Alive.

  “They couldn’t have gotten very far. liana would have to be carried . . .”

  Then she remembered. “Dark red stains? Blood? How much blood?”

  “We’re not sure it was blood. There was a bag of grapes. Deep-red grapes . . . It’s hard to tell . . .”

  Grapes? she thinks. Or blood? And whose? Her husband’s? Her baby’s? Blood, draining out of one of them, or both, enough to stain the upholstery of their car. But stain it how much? A scratch, wiped pink over the gray covers? A puddle? Or nothing, juice from grapes in a bag?

  “—we don’t know yet, Mrs. Margulies . . .”

  She felt her body lift up. “When will you know?!” she shouts. A sudden, searing pain pierces her womb, and she feels the child inside her shift, and something else crush. Someone is screaming, she thinks, as she lies back willingly on the stretcher. A terrible sound, she thinks, as she watches her sleeve folded back and her arm grow naked as the needle is pushed into her throbbing vein.

  As the light fades and her head grows heavy, she thinks of distances. How far could they have gone? she will murmur as her mind fills with images of forest groves and highways, and small paths along riverbeds, oceans and high mountains, and then the sky itself in all its cloudy glory.

  And beyond that to the moon.

  And back again.