He patted his wife’s hand. “I will find Ari,” he said.
Ari was near the orchard looking up into the hills at Gan Dafna when Barak came upon him.
“Does she matter that much, son?”
Ari shrugged.
“I rather liked her myself,” Barak said.
“What is the difference? She comes from a world filled
with silk stockings and perfume and she is going back to it”
Barak held his son’s arm and they walked through their fields to the place where the Jordan River ran past their farm. They could see Jordana and David riding away and they could hear her laughter.
“You see, Jordana is over it already. How are things with the Palmach at Ein Or?”
“As they have always been, Father. Good boys and girls but too few of them and too little to fight with. We cannot expect to win a war against seven armies.”
The sprinklers began whirling in the fields as the sun started its plunge behind the Lebanese hills near Fort Esther. The father and the son watched their fields for a long time. Each of them wondered if there would ever come a day when the only thing to worry about was the mending of a fence or the plowing of their land.
“Let’s go back to the house,” Ari said. “Ema is alone.”
Ari turned to go. He felt his father’s giant hand on his shoulder. He turned. His father’s great head was bowed in sadness. “I leave for Geneva in two days. I leave with sorrow as I have never known. For fifteen years someone has been missing from our table. I have been a proud and stubborn man but I have paid the price of pride with torment. It is hell for me now. Ari, my son, do not let my brother Akiva hang at the end of a British rope.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Jerusalem seethed on the eve of the UNSCOP departure. In the Arab sector inflammatory oratory rang out to the wild chantings of Arab mobs. The city was split into fortified areas, cordoned off with barbed wire, and guarded by Tommies entrenched behind massed guns.
Ari Ben Canaan moved through Jerusalem, crossing from sector to sector to all of the known hangouts of Bar Israel, the Maccabee contact man. Bar Israel seemed to have disappeared. There had been no liaison between Maccabees and Haganah since the capture of Akiva and Little Giora. Ari was not without his sources of information, however, and he found out that Bar Israel was living in a room in the El Katamon district.
Ari went directly to the room and unceremoniously shoved the door open. Bar Israel was engaged in a chess game. He looked up, saw Ari, and returned to studying the chess board.
“Get out,” Ari ordered the other player. He shoved the man through Ś the door and closed it. “You knew damned well I was looking for you.”
Bar Israel shrugged and lit a cigar. “You left fifty love letters all over Jerusalem.”
“Then why didn’t you contact me? I’ve been in Jerusalem for twenty-four hours.”
“You’ve made your dramatic entrance. Now what do you want?”
“Take me to Ben Moshe.”
“We aren’t playing with you boys any more. We have an aversion to Haganah commanders learning our headquarters.”
“You’re not talking to a Haganah commander. You are talking to Ari Ben Canaan, the nephew of Akiva.”
“Ari, I trust you personally but orders are orders.”
Ari snatched Bar Israel out of his chair, spilling the chess board to the floor. He held the little Oriental by the lapels and shook him as though he were a weightless sack. “You are going to take me to Ben Moshe or I am going to snap your neck.”
Ben Moshe sat at his desk at Maccabee headquarters in the Greek colony. Beside him stood Nahum Ben Ami. The two men glared angrily at the bewildered Bar Israel and Ari Ben Canaan.
“We all know Ari,” Bar Israel whimpered. “I took a chance.”
“Get out,” Ben Moshe snarled at the sweating man. “We will settle with you later. Now that you are here, Ben Canaan, what do you want?”
“I want to know what you plan to do about Akiva and the boy?”
“Do? Why nothing, of course. What can we do?”
“You are a liar!” Ari said.
“Whatever we do it is none of your damned business,” Nahum said.
Ari smashed his fist on the desk so hard it splintered the top. “It is my business! Akiva is my uncle!”
Ben Moshe remained icy. “We have had enough cooperation with traitors.”
Ari leaned forward until his face was inches from Moshe’s. “I hate your guts, Ben Moshe, and I hate yours, Nahum Ben Ami. But I am not leaving until I know your plans.”
“You are asking for a bullet through your brain.”
“You shut up, Nahum, or I’ll dismantle you,” Ari said.
Ben Moshe took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on. “Ari, you have such a pleasant way of persuasion,” he said. “We are going into the Acre jail and take Akiva and Little Giora out.”
“That is what I thought. When?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“I am going with you.”
Nahum started to protest but Ben Moshe held up his hand to be quiet.
“You give your word the Haganah does not know about you being here?”
“You have it.”
“What is his word?” Nahum said.
“I take the word of a Ben Canaan.”
“I still do not like it,” Nahum said.
“That is too bad then. You know what this means of course, Ari. We have mobilized our greatest strength. You have been in the Acre jail… you know what it is like. If we can do this thing it will break the British backs.”
“Acre is an all-Arab city. The jail is the toughest stronghold they have in Palestine. Let me see your plans.”
Ben Moshe opened the desk and took out a sheaf of blueprints. Everything in the Acre area had been covered: there was a layout of the town, the exterior approaches to the prison, the escape roads. The diagrams of the prison’s interior were perfect as far as Ari could judge. They must have been drawn up by people who had been prisoners. The guard stations, the arsenal, the main communications center were all pinpointed on the maps.
Ari studied the timetables of the attack. They were masterpieces. Heavy explosives, grenades, and land mines, all manufactured by the Maccabees, were ingeniously employed.
“What do you think, Ari?”
“Everything is perfect-up to a point. I see how you are going to get in and get them outside but the escape from Acre”-Ari shook his head-“this will never work”
“We cannot hide conveniently at the nearest kibbutz” Nahum Ben Ami snapped.
“We know the chance of complete escape is very slim,” Ben Moshe agreed.
“It is not very slim. It is nil. Of course I know you Maccabees pride yourselves on being dead heroes. Unless you set up better getaway plans, that is what you’re going to become.”
“I know what he is going to suggest,” Nahum said. “He will suggest we co-operate with the Haganah and the kibbutzim …”
“That is exactly what I am going to suggest. If you don’t you’ll have a lot of new martyrs. Ben Moshe, you are brave but you are not crazy. As the matter stands now you have possibly a two-per-cent chance. If you allow me to set up more complete escape plans your chances will become fifty-fifty.”
“Watch him,” Nahum said, “he talks too slickly.”
“Go on, Ari.”
Ari spread the master map out on the desk. “I suggest that you take an extra ten or fifteen minutes inside the prison and use that time to free every prisoner in the place. They will scatter in twenty directions and force the British to chase them all and thereby cut the British strength.”
Ben Moshe nodded.
“Now, our own groups should also break up into small units and each unit head out a different way from Acre. I will take Akiva with me and you will take the boy.”
“Go on,” Nahum Ben Ami said. As he listened he realized Ari was making sense.
“For my route I will break for Kfar Masaryk. There I will change transportation to throw them off and use back roads to go up to Mount Carmel south of Haifa. I have trusted friends in the Druse village of Daliyat el Karmil. The British won’t even begin to look up there.”