with her own gnarled hands, and talked about Dickstein like a clever but mischievous schoolboy. 'Mere were eight or nine of them, some from the university, some working men from the East End. If they ever had any money, they'd spent it before they got to France. They hitched a ride on a truck to Paris, then jumped a freight train to Marseilles. From there, it seems, they walked most of the way to Italy. Then they stole a huge car, a German Army staff car, a Mercedes, and drove all the way to the toe of Italy.' Esther's face was creased in smiles, and Karen thought: She would love to have been there with them. 'Dickstein had been to Sicily in the war, and it seems he knew the Mafia there. They had all the guns left over from the war. Dickstein wanted guns for Israel, but he had no money. He persuaded the Sicilians to sell a boatload of submachine guns to an Arab purchaser, and then to tell the Jews where the pickup would take place. They knew what he was up to, and they loved it. The deal was done, the Sicilians got their money, and then Dickstein and his friend stole the boat with its cargo and sailed to Israell' Karen had laughed aloud, there under the fig tree, and a grazing goat looked up at her balefully. 'Wait,' said Esther, 'you haven't heard the end of it Some of the university boys had done a bit of rowing, and one of the other lot was a docker, but that was all the experience they had of the sea, and here they were sailing a fivethousand-ton cargo vessel on their own. They figured out a little navigation from first principles: the ship had charts and a compass. Dickstein had looked up in a book how to start the ship, but he says the book did not tell how to stop it So they steamed into Haifa, yelling and waving and throwing their hats into the air, just like it was a varsity rag--and ploughed straight into the dock. 'lley were forgiven instantly, of course-the guns were more precious than gold, literally. And that!s when they started to call Dickstein The Pirate'.' He did not look much like a pirate, working in the vineyard in his baggy shorts and his spectacles, Karen thought. AN the same, he was attractive. She wanted to seduce him, but she could not figure out how. He obviously liked her, and she had taken care to let him know she was available. But he never made a move. Perhaps he felt she was too young and innocent. Or maybe he was not interested in women. His voice broke into her thoughts. 'I think we've finished.' She looked at the sun: it was time to go. 'You've done twice as much as me.' 'Tm used to the work. Ive been here, on and off, for twenty years. 'Me body gets into the habit.' They walked back toward the village as the sky turned purple and yellow. Karen said, 'What else do you do-when you're not here?' 'Oh ... poison wells, kidnap Christian children.' Karen laughed.
Dickstein said, 'How does this life compare with Californiar, 'This is a wonderful place,' she told him. 'I think theres a lot of work still to be done before the women are genuinely equal.' 'That seems to be the big topic at the moment.' 'You never have much to say about it.' 'Listen, I think you're right; but it's better for people to take their freedom rather than be given it.' Karen said, 'That sounds like a good excuse for doing nothing.' Dickstein laughed. As they entered the village they passed a young man on a pony, carrying a rifle, on his way to patrol the borders of the settlement Dickstein called out, 'Be careful, Yisrael.' The shelling from the Golan Heights had stopped, of course, and the children no longer had to sleep underground; but the kibbutz kept up the patrols. Dickstein had been one of those in favor of maintaining vigilance. -rm going to read to Mottie,' Dickstein said. 'Can I comer, 'Why not?' Dickstein looked at his watch. 'We've just got time to wash. Come to my room in five minutes.' They parted, and Karen went into the showers. A kibbutz was the best place to be an orphan, she thought as she took off her clothes. McAtie's parents were both dead-the father blown up in the attack on the Golan Heights during the last war, the mother killed a year earlier in a shoot-out with Fedayeen. Both had been close friends of Dickstein. It was a tragedy for the child, of course; but he still slept in the same bed, ate in the same room, and had almost one hundred other adults to love and care for him-he was not foisted onto unwilling aunts or aging grandparents or, worst of all, an orphanage. And he had Dickstein. When she had washed off the dust Karen put on clean clothes and went to Dickstein's room. Mottie was already there, sifting on Dickstein's lap, sucking his thumb and listening to Treavure Island in Hebrew. Dickstein was the only person Karen had ever met who spoke Hebrew with a Cockney accent. His speech was even more strange now, because he was doing different voices for the characters in the story: a high-pitched boy's voice for Jim, a deep snarl for Long John Silver, and a half whisper for the mad Ben Gunn. Karen sat and watched the two of them in the yellow electric light, thinking how boyish Dickstein appeared, and how grown-up the child was. When the chapter was finished they took Mottie to his dormitory, kissed him goodnight, and went into the dining room. Karen thought: If we continue to go about together like this, everyone will think we!re lovers already. They sat with Esther. After dinner she told them a story, and there was a young womWs twinkle in her eye. 'When I first went to Jerusalem, they used to say that if you owned a feather pillow, you could buy a house.' Dickstein willingly took the bait. 'How was that?' 'You could sell a good feather pillow for a pound. With that pound you could join a loan society, which entitled you to borrow ten pounds. Then you found a plot of land. The owner of the land would take ten pounds deposit and the rest in promissory notes. Now you were a landowner. You went to a builder and said, 'Build a house for yourself on this plot of land. All I want is a small flat for myself and my family.' ' They all-Iaughed. Dickstein looked toward the door. Karen followed his glance and saw a stranger, a stocky man in his forties with a coarse, fleshy face. Dickstein got up and went to him. Esther said to Karen, 'Don't break your heart, child. That one is not made to be a husband.' Karen looked at Esther, then back at the doorway. Dickstein had gone. A few moments later she heard the sound of a car starting up and driving away. Esther put her old hand on Karen's young one, and squeezed. Karen never saw Dickstein again.
Nat Dickstein and Pierre Borg sat in the back seat of a big black CitroEn. Borg's bodyguard was driving, with his machine pistol lying on the front seat beside him. They traveled through the darkness with nothing ahead but the cone of light from the headlamps. Nat Dickstein was afraid. He had never come to see himself the way others did, as a competent, indeed brilliant, agent who had proved his ability to survive just about anything. Later, when the game was on and he was living by his wits, grappling at close quarters with strategy and problems and personalities, there would be no room in his mind for fear; but now, when Borg was about to brief him, he had no plans to make, no forecasts to refine, no characters to assess. He knew only that he had to turn his back on peace and simple hard work, the land and the sunshine and caring for growing things; and that ahead of him there were terrible risks and great danger, lies and pain and bloodshed and, perhaps, his death. So he sat in the corner of the seat, his arms and legs crossed tightly, watching Borg's dimly lit face, while fear of the unknown knotted and writhed in his stomach and made him nauseous. In the faint, shifting light, Borg looked like the giant in a fairy story. He had heavy features: thick lips, broad cheeks, and protruding eyes shadowed by thick brows. As a child he had been told he was ugly, and so he had grown into an ugly man. When he was uneasy-like now-his bands went continually. to his face, covering his mouth, rubbing his nose, scratching his forehead, in a subconscious attempt to hide his unsightliness. Once, in a relaxed moment, Dickstein had asked him, 'Why do you yell at everybody?' and he had replied, 'Because they're all so fucking handsome.' They never knew what language to use when they spoke. Borg was French-Canadian originally, and found Hebrew a struggle. Dickstein's Hebrew was good and his French only passable. Usually they settled for English. Dickstein had worked under Borg for ten years, and still he did not like the man. He felt he understood Borg's troubled, unhappy nature; and he respected his professionalism and his obsessional devotion to Israeli Intelligence; but in Dickstein's book this was not enough 'cause to like a person. When Borg lied to him, there were always good sound reasons, but Dickstein resented the lie no less. He retaliated by playing Borg's tactics back against him. He would refuse to say where he was going, or he would lie about it. He never checked in on schedule while he was in the field: bLe simply called or sent messages with peremptory demands. And he would sometimes conceal from Borg part or all of his game plan. This prevented Borg from- interfering with schemes of his own, and it was almost more secure--for what Borg knew, he might be obliged to tell the politicians, and what they knew might find its way to the opposition. Dickstein knew the strength of his position-he was responsible for many of the triumphs which had distinguished Bores career--and he played it for all it was worth. The CitroL% roared through the Arab town of Nazarethdeserted now, presumably under curfew-and went on into the night, heading for Tel Aviv. Borg lit a thin cigar and began to speak. 'After the Six-Day War, one of the bright boys in the Ministry of Defense wrote a paper entitled 'The Inevitable Destruction of Israel! The argument went like this. During the War of Independence, we bought arms from Czechoslovakia. When the Soviet bloc began to take the Arab side, we turned to France, and later West Germany. Germany called off all deals as soon as the Arabs found out. France imposed an embargo after the Six-Day War. Both Britain and the United States have consistently refused to supply us with arms. We are losing our sources one by one. 'Suppose we are able to make up those losses, by continually finding new suppliers and by building our own munitions industry: even then, the fact remains that Israel must be the loser in a Middle East arms race. The off countries will be richer than us throughout the foreseeable future. Our defense budget is already a terrible burden on the national economy whereas our enemies have nothing better to spend their billions on. When they have ten thousand tanks, well need six thousand; when they have twenty thousand tanks, we'll need twelve thousand; and so on. Simply by doubling their arms expenditure every year, they will be able to cripple our national economy without firing a shot. . 'Finally, the recent history of the Middle East shows a pattern of limited wars about once a decade. The logic of this pattern
