so indifferent that it passed them by without even pausing to hear the stark message of oppression and humiliation. Most Wednesdays they came to the General Secretary's flat and discussed and argued and made the arrangements for their next public meeting. Always the culmination of the gathering was when the General Secretary's wife drew a single sheet of headed notepaper from the folder, and with pride wrote the requisite and formal letter to Scotland Yard requesting the necessary permission.
All easy, all clean – an absence of blurring obstructions. And if they had not yet roused the dormant wastes of British public opinion then there was always tomorrow, and next year, and a lifetime. But falling on them now was a cold gust that was foreign, and carried in its wind both fear and confusion.
Yet the evening had started well – back-slapping and jokes and wide and excited faces. Those that came first brought the last editions of the afternoon papers with their glaring headlines, and they had stayed, transfixed, beside the television and radio. Their people were coming out, a flight out of Egypt! Escape on the grandest and most eloquent scale! Initially they had discussed a press statement, to be phoned to the agencies as an expression of solidarity with the young people who were brave and of their faith… Would not their next public meeting be crowded and packed, would not the masses at last awake to their cause and struggle? Later had come the flesh that covered the skeleton of the story. A girl flying a plane at gunpoint. Her captain who had carried no weapon dead beside her. A party of school children whose lives were at risk. Damning and deadening.
When the General Secretary had telephoned the Labour Member of Parliament who championed their people in the House of Commons his wife had answered the call. Yes, she would bring him to the phone, and there had been the scraped sound of a hand placed over the receiver and camouflaged and indistinct words. He was not at home, she had said. She was sorry.
Perhaps later. Was there a number she should take down? Another MP, not Jewish but a long-time sympathizer, was braver and less anxious to salve their sensibilities.
'It's aerial piracy and it's murder,' he'd said, with a gruff – ness that startled the General Secretary. 'You cannot dress it up any other way. They've killed a defenceless man, en-dangered a plane-load of people. I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it. I'm bloody sorry. Of course I'm sympathetic to you, and to the fight, but this is different. Take my advice: stay quiet, and don't get involved.'
They had followed the advice. The drafted statement to the press was now a torn shambles of paper in the rubbish basket.
Past four in the morning. Time for the lorries to start their trail into the city With the daily load of market fruit and vegetables, and for the street-cleaning trucks to be out on their business. None in the group able to leave now, held and magnetized by the radio reports. Fresh fiddling with the dials, away from World Service seeking again Voice of America. 'Behind the News' reports.
Read from the studio, taken from the despatches of the Associated Press Bureau in Moscow. A voice in a cracked, staccato rush so that all in the room had to strain to follow the words. The Bureau had been checking for reaction with those Soviet Jews who were at liberty in the Russian capital but whose opposition to the regime was known. A denial of all knowledge and connection with those who had taken the plane out of Kiev, a condemnation of violence from whatever source. In silence they heard the message, heard the door slammed at any suggestion, however guarded, of complicity. Next, a short voice-track from the network's correspondent in Jerusalem.
The Israeli government had no comment, on the record or off the record, to the hi-jacking of the Aeroflot flight. No government official was prepared to speak on the matter. The stance of the cabinet was well known on both terrorism and the plight of Soviet Jewry, the reporter had intoned, and it was the belief of observers in the capital that they were gravely embarrassed by what had happened. From Washington, also, no authorized comment, room only for journalistic speculation, and the expressed belief that the United States administration would not seek to influence the British on the course of action to follow. This incident was regarded as divorced from the President's often-repeated attitude on Human Rights inside
…
Savagely one of the listeners, galvanized now by his lack of sleep, switched off the set, plunging the room for a moment into an abyss of quiet. Then he shouted, 'The cowards, bloody cowards. Bloody stinking politicos., /
An avalanche of contradiction fell on him.
'And what are the people that took the plane, what are they?'
'For years we have suffered in dignity that we might win support, and now that we have succeeded _
'
'They have betrayed the brave ones, these children..
'In the Kremlin they will be drinking champagne, toasting each other.'
They can justify anything now. Pogroms, show trials, round-ups, arrests. Anything they wish to do, they are able to now. The children have given it all to them.'
A girl was crying, smearing a handkerchief across her eyes, her voice broken and frail. 'Why did they kill the man? Why did they shoot the pilot? There can have been no need to. If they had not killed the p i l o t… '
'Who are we to speak of what they have done, and what their motives?' said the General Secretary, slowly and with deliberation. 'Who are we? We did not even make the journey to Israel. We are not a part of that place. We are the Jews that remain outside the family, and we are shocked now because a life has been cut short in the name of Israel, perhaps in heat, perhaps in cold blood. We do not know anything of these people…'
Interruption from above. The battered protest of an umbrella handle pounding at the ceiling – the upstairs tenant's only recourse to quell the surge of noise and argument. s… whether they have been stupid or wise, brave or cowardly, they are of our people. They have stretched us, tested us. Perhaps already they have shamed us, and perhaps also they will destroy us. But they are of our people and they are alone, and they have the right to our prayers.'
Setting aside their weariness, those on the chairs and stools came down to kneel, those on the carpet and the cushions rose awkwardly that they could share the moment. As he shuffled his aged legs and felt the pain in the tightness of his joints, the General Secretary murmured, 'It would have been better for us if they had not come. But they are here, and they are few, and it should not be us that cast the rocks. There will be many others f o r that task.'
Each in his own form, and in silence, the members of the group prayed.
Body strength waning, muscles aching, head throbbing, limbs contorted in the limitations of her resting place, Rebecca sought sleep.
Elusive though, hard to touch. Too many images revolving, denying her the comfort of oblivion. The things that Isaac had spoken of. Tanks. Machine-guns. Soldiers. Cold, metallic, functional killing machines that had come for a purpose, that did not wait beyond the arc lights unless their value had been assessed and decided as necessary.
There because of you, Rebecca. There to watch you, pry over you, examine you, and there to eliminate you, Rebecca. Eliminate, if that should be the instruction passed to them.
Subjugated grey Shadow in the fuselage, and the fidgeting quiet of the passengers. The only movement, the sporadic prowling guard that Isaac maintained.
Love, Rebecca?
Was that the sensation and the addiction that had brought her this far with the boys, with David and Isaac? Love of one, or love of both? Was that where the answer lay?
And what was love? Not something physical, not body to body, not flesh to flesh, not with the muscles straining and the warmth soft and moist. Had not felt their hands perusing her, wanting her, searching the secret intimacy that she thought of as love.
If not love, then why are you here, Rebeoca? What is your purpose?
How can I know? Who now may I ask the question of, and find the answer?
An ordinary girl, Rebecca. Ordinary as cheese and mice, buses and queues, work-shifts and roubles… Ordinary, predictable. But there are not tanks and machine-guns and soldiers deployed through the slow night hours watching and waiting on an ordinary girl, to see what her thoughts and actions will be when the light comes and when she has rested herself.
So easy in the hut, when the battle was just of words. No doubts that the cause was right, certainly. Not in dispute, Rebecca. But if the cause is right then someone must stand and defend it
… but why you, Rebecca? Persecution, humiliation, spoliation, all those things have been visited on our people, and they have not stepped forward, have not armed themselves in their defence. So why you, Rebeoca?
