The young Aviva raced along a side road, which led to Babi Yar, paved with human bones. The sky was raining down weightless, naked people, who fluttered like butterflies as soon as their feet touched the ground. She felt her body. Her fingers sank into her naked flesh. In vain, she tried to hide her private parts. She fell into a ditch. A lot of mud and bodies fell on top of her. She got up and ran again. She fell into another ditch, on top of bodies still warm. She lifted her head and saw four soldiers pointing the barrels of their rifles in her direction, ready to fire. Still asleep, she shouted deliriously, “My Shaul!,” the name of her husband. Then she woke up, and continued her delirious prattle while awake. The soldiers she had seen were like the other soldiers who had climbed onto the wall that adjoined and ran parallel to our own house wall. This was the same wall that Aviva had previously sprayed with kerosene and set fire to. The soldiers, with their enormous frames, leaped into the courtyard of the house, took up position at the door of her bedroom, and shut it. Aviva let out a cry like never before. Shaul woke up, as did everyone in our house, to hear her shouting, “Germans, Shaul, Germans!” She continued to hallucinate for some time. She then started to hiss like a snake slithering over the sand on a hot summer’s day, until she collapsed completely.
“There’ll be no more attacks to disturb you after today, Shaul!” he murmured to himself. After a short silence, he went on: “Or will Aviva add her suffering to your suffering, for you to lament your fate together?”
Shaul gradually realized that Aviva’s silence was something new, and that he hadn’t experienced anything like it in the whole of their life together.
“Aviva has diiiiiied!” he screamed.
Shaul Shamir—who had taken part in four wars against the Arabs, and had completed his years in the reserve—turned his mind to arranging a funeral befitting his wife. He ignored, temporarily at least, his jealousy at the fact that his late wife had been one of the best-known survivors of the massacre of the Jews that had taken place in the Babi Yar valley, in Kiev, Ukraine, during the events of 29 and 30 September 1941.
Shaul put aside all his differences with Aviva and resolved at least to be loyal to her in her death. He thought of her funeral and what it would require. He thought of the kind of flowers he would bring to it. He thought of where Aviva should be buried, and of what he would say in the funeral address he’d deliver in front of the government officials, delegates from the Jewish Agency, and rabbis of her sect, who would all come to bid her farewell. Shaul thought it likely that the German Chancellor, whose country was eager to be at the forefront of those participating in all such occasions, would be there to offer condolences for those Jews who had died and for those who had lived on in torment.
Shaul took all of this into account in his musings. With considerable pride, he designed a splendid funeral worthy of the deceased, hoping that the local Arabs would not be denied the opportunity to participate in it—especially as it might well have an international dimension, and if that happened, it would not be right for their Arab neighbors to be absent. Shaul expected that the current President of the US would take part, though he doubted the participation of former Presidents who had changed their attitudes of support for Israel after leaving the seat of power. Shaul wasn’t too worried about that, for he recalled that Israel would compensate for their absence by the presence of leaders of states that had signed peace agreements with Israel or had even secured some forms of agreement without the need for any signing. He was quite convinced—believing as he did that everyone was either a neighbor or a neighbor of a neighbor—that mourning was a duty, and that death did not distinguish between people.
Shaul had confidence in his own judgments. He decided to anticipate all the formalities, and to invite Mahmoud Dahman—he didn’t know that the others called him The Remainer—to take part in the funeral. At the end of the day, he told himself, Mahmoud’s our neighbor, he’s one of us, he’s our neighbor and an Israeli like us.
So he contacted Mahmoud and invited him.
The Remainer thanked Shaul profusely for even thinking of inviting him to take part in Aviva’s funeral, because he was actually extremely sad about Aviva. The Remainer joked with him, “Do you know, Shaul, I shall miss Aviva (by God, she wasn’t worthy of you!). As soon as I come back from the funeral, my children—especially Filastin—will ask me: ‘Daddy, now who’s going to keep us awake half the night and disturb our sleep, as Israel disturbs the sleep of the whole region?’ Don’t blame me for saying this, neighbor! As for Jinin, you know her, Jinin’s my daughter, she’ll ask questions out of turn, she’ll say to me in complete surprise: ‘Daddy, who’s going to spray kerosene on the wall of our house and set it alight? I missed it last time!’”
The Remainer was silent for a few seconds, then quickly reassured his neighbor:
“Adon Shaul, don’t take any notice of what I said. Put a watermelon in your stomach, as we say. No,
