David spoke with almost a drawl, his eyes closed, seeming to ignore Isaac.
' Is that why you began? Is that why you started, because it wouldn't be easy?'
'Someone had to, after everything that our people have gone through
'
'But that's just jargon, David.'
'The flight had to be started..
'More jargon.*
' If you didn't believe in it why did you come? Why are you part of us?*
'Different to the words you use, a different reason. Revenge, perhaps – revenge for what has happened.'
'We are no different. We are of like mind, the same body. We hate with the same depth.'
Isaac shifted his position, mindful of the nails in the floor board, poorly hammered and whose heads bit at his buttocks.
'What was your vision of victory, David?' He saw the other man start, the eyes flash, a warning curl of anger at his mouth.
'What do you mean?'
'A campaign must have an aim, there must be a possibility of victory. If we are to fight them…'
'We have hurt them – is that not enough?'
' It's never enough, just to hurt. We could go on hurting them for weeks and months and the achievement would be nothing.'
'You think that it's nothing we have achieved? A policeman shot, an organization formed, a commitment, and you call that nothing?' David stared at Isaac, intense, chin jutting, spitting out his words.
' It was a start to something.' Isaac sought to catch a tone of reason and rationality. 'But it could not be the end. You must have thought of how what we did would develop, lead on. I can't find the words to express quite what I want to say… Just that-what did you hope for, what did you expect?'
'You say to hurt them is not enough. Well, who else has hurt them? Tell me that. Who else has filled their coffins? Has wounded and angered and insulted them? And what would you have us do? Send another telegram to the President of the United States? Call a press conference for the foreigners to attend and tell them our problems? Sit down in the street and wait for the militia to carry you away? Does that hurt them? Has anything changed in the years of the passive people, the clever people, those who relish the banner of 'non-violence'? Have they won any battles? Do visas flow because their names are broadcast on the outside radio? Does it, shit. They win nothing, only a mindless and valueless moment of attention before they are forgotten and taken to rot in the camps.'
Startled and quieter, fearful of the passion that had been laid before him, Isaac said, 'But you knew, David, you knew that it could not just continue. They have organized themselves, they will sense they have a target. You yourself have said that in all probability they have taken Moses. If we cannot escape then they will close around us…'
'They would never take me.'
'But is that what you foresaw? David, is that what you thought would happen, that one morning they would surround us…?'
'They would never take me.*
Isaac was shouting now, changing his voice, believing he had secured the truth. It's a bloody death-wish, isn't it? You want to play the martyr. Spread out like a hero, and your name on the song sheet. Is that what you want, a tree on a hill outside Jerusalem…'
' I don't want to die.'
'… and a crowd of people to come each Shebat, and stand in silence…?'
' I don't want to die.'
'… the weeds will grow over you. You'll be nothing, just a bloody symbol. Is that what it was all for, to satisfy your bloody death-wish?'
'The door, Isaac. It's behind you. You can open it, you can walk through it, you can walk away, make your own path.'
Isaac looked into his face, blinked at the unmoving eyes of the friend he had known since he played with a tennis ball in the dust of his street. Saw that the composure had taken root again, and would not falter whatever the provocation he offered.
Tm sorry, David. I mean it, I'm sorry.'
Just a whisper, competing with the light wind in the high trees. 'If you think it has been easy, Isaac, it is because you have not listened, you have not watched.'
For many minutes neither spoke, both their faces in shadow, so that neither could sense the brooding mood that gripped them. When would the girl come? thought Isaac. How much longer?
Would she come in darkness and in secrecy or in the public light of dawn? They'd be able to read it, written over her, whether she had succeeded or failed them. They wouldn't need words, or explanations: they would see it in her face. David had won his battle, had found the guns, and Isaac had fulfilled his share. Was she capable, the girl, of meeting her commitment? Hours Isaac had spent with her over the last years, and yet he hardly knew her, understood little about her.
Just the facade, not why she was a part of them, not why she had cradled the policeman's gun in the brief moments she had handled it, or why she had declared her intention to execute a man who was unknown to her, or why on this evening she would be wheedling her sexuality on a stupid, oafish youth. What did she owe them, that she risked her life to be part of a strange and demented crusade, a witness to David's death-wish, an accessory to Isaac's vengeance? He'd noted that she kept silent through David's monologues, seldom joined the others in questioning, seemed to float with them, a piece of driftwood. It would be different and straightforward if she were David's girl, but the moments, hidden or open, of gentle affection were not present – not that he had seen, anyway; never entwined fingers, never the hidden jokes and intimacies of lovers, nothing to give them away. But she was not relegated to the role of follower, to provide the boys of the group with the services they needed; she was an equal, as much a part of the 'programme' as he, Isaac, was. And now they depended on her: there was no flight without her, no salvation. If she failed them it would be the police cells and the beginning of David's yearning for the martyr's lime pit, and the end of Isaac's vengeance. He pictured her in his mind.
The awkward and ungainly chopping stride that was too long for a girl that cared to draw attention, the teeth that were too prominent, almost like a rabbit's, the hair that was not tended, the clothes that were husbanded. It was difficult to imagine her in David's front line, fighting his battles, setting out for combat where the intellectuals of their people had lost their way.
What would they do if they had not won Yevsei, if there were no escape?
It was a hot, perspiring night, but Isaac shuddered, and hunched forward with his body as if to draw towards himself the fragile heat of the shrinking flame.
Rebecca was haggard with exhaustion by the time she reached the hut. It was the first light of morning, Wednesday morning, the day they had chosen for the break-out. The previous night she had spent without sleep. It had been too late by the time that she had ditched Yevsei Allon to get the bus that went far out of the city to the forests, too dangerous to go home in case the police and militia should come. So there was nothing left for her to do but walk the streets, fearful of passing cars, anxious over the noise of footsteps behind, shrinking into shadows and finally collapsing, dazed and nervous, to a park bench. She had taken the first bus of the day out, and then stumbled the long walk through the trees to the hut that had been silent and had seemed deserted till she had knocked softly and said her name and heard the movement inside that told her that Isaac and David were there.
The relief had swept over their faces when she had said flatly, 'It's all right, hell do it. Someone
– it had better be me – has to take the parcel to him at noon. He thinks it is books he is handling.
But he'll do it.' Then she had added, 'And you have the guns?'
David had unwrapped them, and laid them out on the floor, and she had seen the killing weapons, and the skin on her face had compressed together.
' Isaac and I will have these,' said David, handling the submachine-guns. 'We understand them.
You can have the policeman's pistol. It is enough for you.'
'Where did you get them?' Rebecca asked, wonder in her voice, built from the uncertainty she had felt
