Before Kol Israel radio had even reported it, Nitza called me from the Kibbutz and said that there had been a disaster: three terrorists had sneaked in and had barricaded themselves in the children's nursery. "They... they are there right now," she said, her voice cracking.
I swept all papers off my desk, including the insurance form I was filling for the new client, who now sat before me, his eyebrows joined in displeasure.
"Is Ilan there, inside?" I asked.
Ilan was our five year old boy. He had remained with Nitza in the Kibbutz after we had divorced, three years before, when I moved back to Tel Aviv.
"Y...yes," Nitza said, her harsh weeping echoing through the long distance crackle.
"I'm coming," I said.
I knew I wouldn't make it in time-- it was three and a half hours away to Kibbutz Sha'anan-- it's almost on the border with Lebanon-- but all I could think of was that last week it had been my turn to have Ilan, and that I had cancelled because I had work to do.
"Where you going?" asked the client. He was an old Yekke, a German Jew, who had come to have his Jewelry store insured. (I had opened an insurance agency, after I had left the army.)
"I must go," I told him.
"Now?"
Without answering I grabbed my car keys, and, like an idiot, also the .22 Beretta from my desk drawer (only in the car did I see that the magazine was empty), and ran out.
All the way north I kept thinking that maybe if I drove fast I could still get there in time, not allowing myself to think anything else. But when I arrived at the Kibbutz it was of course over.
Whether the rescue attempt was botched, or whether there had never been any chance of success, was never made clear, and was really irrelevant. The moment the three terrorists had raced through the old almond orchard, passing Chanan Berkovitch, the old Bible teacher, on their way in, it seemed almost pre-ordained. Sweeping by him, they shouted-- in Hebrew, no less-- that it was a military exercise, and the fool-- he was returning from Guard Duty at the avocado field, with a loaded Uzi and two magazines, a walkie talkie, everything -- the fool let them pass; even with their Russian RPGs slung plainly across their backs, with the Syrian-green ammo boxes they were lugging between them as they ran, with the AK-47 Kalashnikovs swinging at their hips-- even with all this, he let them pass. But a moment later, when there was a shot and the children started screaming inside the nursery (the fuckers had killed the teacher, Miryam Goldin, with a single bullet to the head, the moment they burst in), everybody knew, and all men raced pell-mell to the rescue, grabbing whatever they could find: Uzis, Kalashs, MAC-10s, Gallils, even rusty Mausers and British Lee Enfields that were stashed in the armory somewhere, from the days of '48.
The terrorists (no one knew yet how many there were, three or four) had in the meantime barricaded themselves in the nursery, pushing cribs and beds against the swinging doors, and began shooting out the windows without pause. They must have brought thousands of rounds of ammo with them, probably in their backpacks, too. The first to get it was Chanan Berkovitch-- he rushed ahead as if asking for it -- then Micha Barzel, the manager of the cowshed with whom I used to play ping-pong, and by that time a patrol of Golani that was in the area, mapping some wadi, took over until the Sayeret, the Recon Commando, arrived by Helis from Ramat David. It took them only forty minutes, I'll give them that.
Later I was told that of the nine children, two had probably died right after the fuckers had bound them too tightly, or something. The three had brought with them large spools of copper wire, and pliers, for this. I didn't ask if Ilan was one of the two. What did it matter? When I arrived, the Chevre Kadisha, the burial society, was already there. The moment I saw them, three stooped old men with black skullcaps and flapping black coats through which the fringes of their prayer shawls flickered, I knew it, before I even saw them dragging the small coffins into the nursery, trampling over the asters.
"Don't go in!" Moosa Hartov shouted at me. He had been my Second in Command when I left the Sayeret two years before. He rushed to my side and grabbed my arm. "I'm telling you, don't go in!"
He was still dressed in the black Nomex coverall with the kevlar vest, and with the tight kevlar helmet on his head, looking like a fancy spaceman with all these objects hanging from his back and belt, radios, flares, magazines, syringes, knives, nylon ropes, clusters of grenades. He smelled of cordite and blood, his Patuga canvas boots grimy with blood and brains.
I tried to push by him but he stiff-armed me away. Four medics stumbled by, carrying three soldiers piled on one stretcher, all dead. One soldier had his neck torn off and the head lolled on to the side, hanging by a thread of skin. His mouth moved. Then the medic slapped it back onto the stretcher and threw a gray blanket over the corpses.
The crowd of Kibbutzniks stood frozen, whispering in shock. Only the crackle of radios and the slow whirr of the heli blades could be heard, and a distant chirp of some sprinklers, probably at the avocado fields.
Nitza stood a little way off, her red hair flying in all directions, hands to her mouth, with Yossi, this husband of hers, at her side. He carried a ridiculously long Nagant, a Russian pistol as long as his thigh and older than he, fifty years old, maybe. He probably got to the armory last and that's all that was left. Both she and he were in pyjamas. They were probably in bed, screwing, when it happened.
"I came as soon as I could," I said.
Nitza rattled her head violently from side to side, as if saying 'Don't talk to me.'
Her husband said that it had just ended. "They got them all," he said. "Finally."
"But the children?" I asked. I couldn't see how we could talk so quietly. The sun was shining on the wet grass, from somewhere came a merry tune from a forgotten radio. The sprinklers still chirped.
"Nine of the eleven," Yossi said. "Nine. Also Ilan." He began to curse in Arabic, at length. I couldn't see what this would accomplish now, cursing.
Nitza chose that moment to start screaming, and at the sound of her voice all other women began to screech, too. I looked at her and all at once, without thinking, I turned around and barged in, pushing Moosa aside. This time he said nothing and let me pass.
The inside of the nursery looked like a broken doll house splashed with ketchup. There was more red than white on the walls. Two unshaven hippies, their black T shirts spattered with dark brown, were slumped against an overturned crib, under a large cardboard drawing of the Evil Haman leading the Virtuous Mordechai on a horse, with Queen Esther looking on. The holiday of Purim was two days away and the older children had probably made this drawing for the younger ones, for the party. Soon they would have begun making them their Purim masks. The two terrorists looked calm, as if sleeping. Gray stuff dripped from their heads. A third one was lying face down in the door, his head a mass of red and yellowish gray. In the other room the three Kadishers were bending over some small heaps. I began going in their direction but at that moment Moosa caught up with me and dragged me back by my belt, with both hands.
"Don't be a donkey," he hissed.
I heard myself ask "PLF?"
The Palestine Liberation Front had a training camp in Lebanon, not thirty miles away, in the Bik'aa. Twice before they had tried to get in, but each time a Golani patrol got them. Now they didn't.
"No, PLO. They had their papers on."
The three Kadishers went by, single file, each carrying a little box. I made to follow them but Moosa, one hand still at my belt, hit softly at my jaw with the open palm of his other hand, turning my head away.
"No," he said.
I said, "I want in on the Retribution."
"Don't be a donkey," Moosa said, released my belt, and was gone.
In a second he was back. He punched my shoulder, hard. "Mother's cunt," he said. "They got three of my guys, too."
He again grabbed my belt, and this time I let him pull me out; on the way I saw the Kadishers going in again. Outside, on the grass, were six cardboard boxes, not very large.
"I want in on this," I said.
"They got them with RPGs through the walls."
But I couldn't care about this, now. "I want in."
"Your mother's cunt. Once you are out, you are out!"
I opened my mouth to argue, but just then the Prime Minister arrived, and the reporters, in two large Super Frelons, and also a Cobra Medevac, with a red Magen David on its tail. The Prime Minister nodded at me, curtly. He used to visit our apartment in Tel Aviv
