The last of the larger groups, close to one hundred men and women, mostly paratroopers whose unit lost its way in the initial fighting and then was bypassed by the enemy surge, manages to find a large cache of mortars, sten guns, and ammunition hidden in a cave on Mt. Carmel. In 1941, aware that then British-governed Palestine was the next target for Rommel’s Afrika Korps, the Jewish leadership hid the weaponry for a last stand. Instead, Rommel was stopped in Egypt.
Though primitive by modern standards, the cache might have provided sufficient firepower for large-scale resistance. But the cave leaked rainwater for decades. The cosmolite-soaked rags that were meant to preserve these armaments remain in place, but the guns they embraced have long since rusted away.
Traveling by night in groups of ten, seventy of the Mt. Carmel partisans make it to Tel Aviv. The rest are never heard from.
46
AT THE WHITE HOUSE, the presidential press conference is packed with American and international correspondents, including a single reporter claiming to represent Ha’aretz, formerly the Israeli newspaper best known abroad, but now out of electricity, out of paper, out of business. A month earlier, Israel boasted a dozen daily papers; today there are none. As a matter of policy, the White House press office does not normally grant access to ghost correspondents from dead newspapers, but the White House gatekeepers examine only credentials. Though her newspaper is history, the Israeli correspondent’s credentials look good.
The room is packed, and tense.
As is his wont, the president manages to be simultaneously folksy, curt, respectful, and evasive, recalling one of the chief executive’s own heroes, Ronald Reagan, who like most dependable actors never strayed from the script.
“Now there’s a real good point, Ted,” the president pretends. “All I can tell y’all is we’re meeting next week with my counterparts from Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Jay-pan.” As a graduate of Harvard, the president is well aware of how to pronounce the name of the country governed from Tokyo; he never spoke it that way at Harvard, or at Yale where he took his law degree, though admittedly second from the bottom of his class—the only graduate with a worse scholastic record is now one of the world’s richest men. “With goodwill and persistence, the Jewish refugee problem will be solved.” The president winks conspiratorially as he turns his broad smile to the other side of the room. “Rich, you look like you’re about to have a cat.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, there’s been much speculation about Israel’s use, or should I say non-use, of the nuclear option. Has the administration been restraining the Israelis from going nuclear?”
“Rich, I can’t address that in detail, which I’m sure y’all appreciate. But I can say we have counseled patience to our Israelian friends. Elizabeth?”
“Mr. President, gas at the pump is now eight dollars a gallon and expected by some analysts to exceed ten dollars in a matter of days. Have you talked with the Saudis about restarting production?”
“Liz, no one feels the pain of the driving public more than myself. As a car collector and an amateur mechanic, which I guess most of you folks are aware of, seeing as how many of you have visited with the first lady and myself at the farm, there’s nothing I like better than pure, unadulterated horsepower, which I hasten to add has been, is, and I expect will be for a good long time the pleasant pastime of many Americans. So the answer is yes, talks with our friends the Saudis are ongoing, and I hope to have good news soon for the American driving public when the king of that country and I meet in several days. Let me say this: there will not come a time while I am in office that one yellow school bus anywhere in America will not deliver our young’uns to school for lack of gas. Lance?”
“Mr. President, recent opinion polls show little enthusiasm for absorbing millions of immigrants. With so many Americans jobless, do you see political implications for the administration in an election year if, as some in Congress have suggested, some six million Israelis are to be admitted to the US?”
His smile narrowing only a little while his chin seems to jut out like the prow of a ship, his head raised as though seeking guidance from above, the leader of the free world nods the presidential head with a mixture of moral rigor, statesmanlike certitude, and religious faith. “Lance, if there’s one thing I can tell the American people, it’s this: our administration will do the right thing, both by the American people and by the Israelians who have fallen on such hard times. God bless America. Y’all have a nice—”
Before he can complete the sentence that customarily concludes his every public statement, a svelte woman in a red pantsuit stands and, in a voice at once professional and desperate, addresses the chief executive directly, her mild accent cutting through the manufactured ambiance, as the president would describe it later, like a hot knife through ice cream.
“Mr. President, I am Ornit Peck from Ha’aretz Israel daily newspaper. Can you please tell us if you have a plan to bring aid, specifically food, water and medicines to the refugees now in Tel Aviv who—”
Don Beadle, the president’s press secretary, finds his feet, and as well an opportunity to prove that he is more than a mere mouthpiece. “Madam, I can understand your need to express yourself, but in fact the president has already concluded today’s briefing. If you’d like, you can present any question you might have in writing and I’m sure—”
The president raises his hand. “Miz Beck, is it?”
“Peck. I—”
“Miz Peck, then. First and foremost, I want to state that I and every member of this administration, and I speak as well for my friends in the legislative branch on both sides of the aisle, that every American feels your pain and the pain of the Jewish people. I assure you that this administration will do everything in its earthly power to find a solution to what is certainly a disastrous situation, a solution that is amenable to all parties in the conflict, so help me God. We are working on it. Now, y’all do have nice day.”
By the end of which nice day Miz Ornit Peck, ghost correspondent of the major ghost newspaper of what is barely more than a ghost nation, is informed via email that her White House press credentials are no longer valid, but that should she reapply under the auspices of a functioning media organization the White House press office will be pleased to consider issuing fresh credentials. This last flourish, uncharacteristically generous from a press office known to be hostile to the press, is the result of a comment by the president to Don Beadle on their way out of the halclass="underline" “Got to hand it to the little lady. Jewess got her more balls than our en-tire Su-preme Court.” Absent that comment, Beadle would have had Ornit Peck or Beck or whatever declared persona non grata for life. Or until the president leaves office, which if the cost of gasoline at the pump does not drop might be a matter of months.
Either way, Beadle’s own future is assured. He receives fresh job offers every day. At the moment. he is leaning in the direction of a position as communications director of Shell, with a salary that causes him to become hard as a teenage boy on his first date. Of course, if by some miracle the president is able to resolve the oil crisis and is elected to a second term, there is every reason to hang on as press secretary for another year, not least to share in the triumph. Shell will wait. They’ll all wait. Whatever happens to the president, whatever happens to Ornit Peck, whatever happens to those poor kikes in Tel Aviv, Don Beadle’s future is bright.
47
EVER FAITHFUL, JUDY DOES not object that Yigal is using her body to forget at least momentarily how otherwise impotent he feels. She knows that his thrusting is not even remotely personal, and though this is probably the worst form of marital intimacy—two people engaging their individual loneliness—she is not averse to being used if it means being useful. Perhaps, she thinks, this will take his mind off Cobi, who has not been heard from since the first day of the war. It doesn’t work, of course. Certainly not for her. She is so far from arousal tonight’s lovemaking might as well be a form of consensual rape. She lies there as he continues to pound her, poor dear Yigal, and thinks for the first time in a long time whether she should simply fake an orgasm. Does Yigal require that as well? She doesn’t know, and then the problem is solved.