Promised Land Read online

  “You mean you want government money to help you get rich.”

  “Doesn’t everyone? Why not? They say, a rising sea lifts all boats.”

  Sapir finished tying his shoelaces and sat up. “So, have you finished?” he said.

  “No, but isn’t that enough for now?”

  “How old are you? And from where?”

  “Twenty-eight. From Germany. Munich.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes, two children, twins. Two years old.”

  “Sabras? Born in Israel?”

  “Of course. A boy and a girl.”

  “How perfect. Listen, boychik. It’s true there are problems, of course there are. We shocked ourselves by fulfilling our dream, we have our country, it’s a miracle. But what is the reality? An Israel of rationing. Waiting in lines. We lack water, food, electricity. First not enough people and now too many. So things take time, but this is a unique opportunity in the history of the Jewish people. What is the name of your company?”

  “Feather Products Limited.”

  Sapir laughed in recognition. “You make pillows, cushions, feather beds from cast-off chicken feathers. Original. A good blue and white innovation. But you’ve expanded, right?”

  “Blue and white?”

  “Colors of the flag.”

  “Of course. Yes, that’s just a small business, but growing, I should add. I kept the name, it amuses me. It’s really a holding company now, of course without stocks, it isn’t a public company, but it’s like an umbrella company for various companies I set up. Construction, import-export, mostly building materials. But I’m really interested in local projects, manufacturing.” And he added, “Creating jobs.” He almost said, to build the Jewish state, but that would have been too much.

  Sapir asked more specific questions about turnover, profits, growth potential in the various fields, and then took out his little black book. Arie felt weak with tension, his heart beat faster. He suppressed a grin. Everyone knew Pinhas Sapir was forever noting numbers in his famous little black notebook, from which it was said he managed the entire Israeli economy. It was also said that, for him, true poetry was a line of numbers, and Arie badly wanted to be among them. Was Sapir making a note to remind himself: Loan guarantee to gifted young entrepreneur?

  But Sapir had a proposal of his own. “Why don’t you take your energy and knowledge and set up in a developing town where the immigrants are? Small-scale farming in the central region has its value, and it’s true that people there need jobs, but people along the borders need them more, and we need the people to stay there. You’ll get a government subsidy much easier there than near Tel Aviv.”

  “What business did you have in mind?”

  “Textiles. You’ll get rich, the people there need jobs and it’s a labor-intensive industry. We have excellent contacts worldwide with the schmatte trade, so you’ll have a ready-made market. The government will always keep ownership of military-security industries, and natural resources, but we’ll help other manufacturing industries. What do you say? Interested?”

  “Of course I’m interested. In principle. But what I say makes sense too. How about a deal? I go wherever we agree to set up a textile business, and you provide the approval for the agricultural land. That way we’re both happy, and that is the basis of any good deal.”

  “You’ve got chutzpah, and you’re a little too smart for your own good, boychik. But it sounds good. Leave me your details and your proposal. We’ll work on it. Be in touch in a week.”

  They shook hands, and Arie had the opportunity to pronounce the Yiddish phrase he had practiced dozens of times, and prayed he would find useful: “A groysen dank dir.” Huge thanks to you.

  “Gey gezunterheyt,” Sapir said, waving at the door. “Go in health. And stop trying so hard to use Yiddish phrases, it doesn’t suit a German yekke.”

  IDO and ARIE

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  November 1952

  It was a surprise to everyone that Tamara’s little brother Ido, who Rachel always said would lose his head if it wasn’t fixed to his shoulders, still had the gift that Peter had given him when he had returned from Europe two years earlier: the silver hamsa, the little hand with a deep blue glass eye glowing in its open palm. The good luck charm hung around his neck on the same silver chain, and each time Rachel unhooked it to wash her son or put it back she would say: Elohim shomer alaycha, God protect you.

  Ido was six years old now, and loved to play to the crowd. He would kiss the hamsa and raise his eyes to the heavens, which made everyone laugh. “I feel lucky,” he would say, and that made them all hoot with laughter. “From your lips to God’s ears,” Rachel would say.

  And it was only after the stabbing that everyone realized: It was the one day Ido wasn’t wearing his hamsa to ward off the evil eye.

  Moshe had taken Ido and his sister Estie to the beach at the Jaffa end of Tel Aviv for a Yom Kef, a fun day out. The children played in the low waves until the sun was high, when they walked to the shade of the Carmel Market for hummus and falafel. Moshe loved it because you could refill your salad as often as you liked, and he liked to do so often.

  They arrived late when the food market was thinning out before the Sabbath. Dogs scavenged through offal and the poor rummaged for discarded vegetables, while the last of the shoppers crowded around Yossi’s pita stall for a quick lunch. Moshe bumped into a colleague from the school where he now taught twice a week, and together they jostled forward, inch by inch, as Yossi yelled “Yalla, Yalla, fresh falafel, forget about grandma, this is the real thing, don’t panic, plenty for everyone.”

  It was a zoo. Few understood the new currency, which had just changed from Palestine pounds to Israeli lirot, from the British occupation currency to the Israeli freedom one; the banknotes had new colors and pictures, while the coins were too similar. People loved having the first Jewish currency in two thousand years, but they fumbled with the change, afraid of being cheated. To make it worse, half the crowd were new immigrants who barely spoke Hebrew and called out in languages from Parsi to Bulgarian to Spanish. One young woman who was crammed against the counter dropped her change and cursed loudly in French because in the crush she couldn’t bend to pick up her coins.

  Ido and Estie were holding hands in the narrow alley, watching vendors pull down their striped awnings. Trucks backed up through thick exhaust fumes to reload the unsold produce. As the heat cooled the unsanitary odors became less pungent.

  Just as it was finally Moshe’s turn to ask for pitas with hummus and falafel and extra salad, there was sudden shouting in Arabic and Hebrew and yelling and a woman’s scream. A man in a jalabiyah and one sandal ran between two carts. He was shouting in Arabic, Allah Akhbar, God is great, and raced down the alley straight toward Ido and Estie. Sunlight flashed off the blade in his hand, it was long and red with blood. The screaming penetrated the din at the falafel stand and everyone looked around and saw the Arab coming fast. Moshe yelled. “Ido! Estie!” He tried to force his way through the press of people. He screamed and his friend and everyone else pushed to the side to get out of the way. Now everyone was yelling “Stop him!” in every language. A man darted forward and looked as if he would tackle the Arab but stopped dead. The Arab was tall and young and desperate, his legs pumping as he waved the dagger above his head. His face was contorted in fear and fury, drops of sweat flew from him. He was closing on Ido and Estie, looming above them. Estie put her hand to her mouth and screamed. Ido, still holding her other hand, pulled her sharply out of the man’s way and as the Arab passed them Ido stuck out his leg. The Arab was too fast and strong to trip and his motion pushed aside the boy’s leg, toppling Ido, who spun to the ground. But the Arab lost balance, his forward momentum twisted him to the side, his legs crossed, and he crashed sideways into a metal pole supporting an awning, which shook and twanged like a Jew’s harp. He caught himself but the impact made him drop his knife. For an instant he was unsure whether to bend down to grab the kni
fe or run without it. Seeing this, the man who had wanted to intervene regained his courage and sprang onto the Arab, pinning him to the ground, pounding him with his fist, and others joined him.

  They heard shouts of “Stop him, the murderer!” from the direction he had come. More running feet and a woman fell on the Arab, beating him mercilessly about the head with a stick, hitting other Jews in the process.

  Moshe pulled her away, shouting “Enough,” and he tried to protect the Arab from the enraged crowd as the woman shouted, “He stabbed my husband, kill him, kill him!” Now the crowd was cursing Moshe, calling him an Arab-lover. They pulled him away so they could get at the Arab again but two policemen ran up, handcuffed the bleeding man, and pulled him to his feet, leading him away, leaving the crowd shouting, some laughing in nervous excitement.

  Panting heavily, Moshe pulled Ido and Estie into his arms while one man said, “What kind of Jew are you, protecting that bastard? The boy has more guts than you do.”

  And indeed, Ido was the hero of the moment. Everyone had seen him try to trip the big Arab and that had led to his capture. Estie was shaking and crying and Ido had his arm about her shoulder, silently comforting his older sister.

  “He’s my son, he’s only six,” Moshe said between gasps, kneeling by his children. His colleague said, “You should be proud of him,” and Moshe said, “I am, I am.”

  “He’s got more guts than you have,” someone said again.

  “And what did you do, then?” Moshe responded, but stopped himself. This was no time to fight. “It’s true though,” he said, ruffling Ido’s hair, “he’s a gutsy kid.”

  At home Rachel put ice on Ido’s leg, which was red and sore, and tried to bounce him on her knee, even though he struggled to get off. He was too old for that and was silent and glum. Rachel wanted to say, Never do anything like that again, but she couldn’t because in the country they lived, who knew what the future held? There were terrorist attacks all over the country every week. Israel’s secret weapon was the resilience of its people. They didn’t panic or run away, they fought back. But a boy? A six-year-old boy? Well, hopefully soon there would be peace.

  It was then that Tamara noticed the hamsa was not around Ido’s neck. He wouldn’t let anyone bathe him anymore and had forgotten to put the hamsa back on. Tamara said, “But where is the hamsa? You see, God protects those he loves even without it,” and that is when Ido spoke for the first time. His wide brown eyes looked up at Tamara and he said, in a small voice, as if talking to himself, “I didn’t want the bad man to hurt Estie,” and at last he burst into tears.

  * * *

  It took ten weeks for Pinhas Sapir’s Finance Ministry bureaucrats to rubber- stamp what it took Sapir one minute to decide: Feather Products Ltd.’s proposal to turn wasteland into small-scale semi-urban farming was sound and desirable fiscally, socially, and politically. Arie got his deal.

  He called his friend Natanel Ben-Tsion, now a leading member of the local Mapai party branch and, more relevantly, head of Herzliya’s Land Use and Planning Committee, asking to meet immediately.

  Two hours later Arie ordered coffee and blueberry cheesecake at Kapulsky Café near Herzliya city hall. A moment after the surly waitress slammed the cake to the table, Ben-Tsion slapped him on the shoulder from behind, pulled out a chair and with a two-handed thump on the table, which rattled Arie’s coffee cup in the saucer and spilt the coffee, sat down heavily. “What a day,” he said, dabbing at the spreading dark stain with a paper napkin. He used Arie’s teaspoon to sample the cake, but before he could launch into his trials Arie said, “It’s just beginning. Sapir came through.”

  “With the land?”

  “Yes.”

  “Terrific. Wow. Okay, so what’s next?”

  “Exactly as planned. We now have permission to develop all the land, ninety-two dunams, into agricultural space. Papers are being drafted, I’ll take care of that. We’ll clear it, flatten it, put in water piping, fencing, enough to make it look like Feather Products is serious. What you must do is immediately begin the process to rezone the agricultural land into residential. We can build a whole subsection of town, and if we really can build higher than usual, like you said, four stories,… can we?”

  “Yes, I’ll take care of that.” Ben-Tsion laughed and drained his orange juice. “So basically, you got the land for bupkes.”

  “Yes. Free.”

  “Two more juices,” Ben-Tsion called to the waitress. “To celebrate.”

  “What about the Canadian? Any news?”

  “Yes. I got his answer yesterday. He’s worried, and it should work. I’ll write back this afternoon. I’ll confirm the accuracy of your assessment and let him stew.”

  The adjacent plot of land, another eight dunams on the eastern side, jutted out of the square ninety-two-dunam plot like the pointed roof of a house. From the land registry Arie had found out that a Canadian had bought the land in 1932, presumably as an investment for the future, but had never paid his land taxes. So Arie, assuming, correctly as it now turned out, that he would get the land license, had written to the Canadian in Winnipeg a month earlier, pointing out that the man’s investment had gone south and was barely worth more than the taxes he owed. The land in question now abutted a larger parcel that was becoming farmland, an urban green belt, and would never be worth more than it was now, which was little. However, his company, Feather Products Ltd., which needed space for greenhouses and sheds, was offering to buy it from him at current market price. Arie pointed out that when it would be surrounded by farmland, it would be worthless. At most he could grow lettuce. Arie proposed that the Canadian not take his word for it but write and ask the Herzliya municipality what the long-term master plan was for the area. Arie helpfully provided the correct name and department to address the request for information: the chair of the Herzliya Municipality Land Use and Planning Committee, Mr. Natanel Ben-Tsion.

  Their secret plan was to build a shopping center on the Canadian’s land, to serve the new housing community.

  The two friends sat back, sipping juice and coffee. Arie took out a cigar and began to unwrap it, but Ben-Tsion laid a hand on his forearm, looking around. “Don’t smoke that here. Where did you get it, anyway? It’s too conspicuous. People don’t have enough to eat and here we are fressing blueberry cake and smoking cigars. People will notice, ask questions. Don’t show off.”

  “Nonsense,” Arie said, pulling the wrapping off with a flourish. “What’s the point of living if you can’t enjoy life? Anyway, I have to go, I have to see a man about a textile business. Come to the house for Shabbat dinner on Friday. And bring that girl you were with last night, she’s sweet.”

  “You can talk, Tamara is … Well, all I can say is, you don’t deserve her. You shouldn’t mess around.”

  “You say a lot of things. Just write that letter today, I want those eight dunams before he finds out the land is being rezoned. And I want the rezoning to be quick too. How long will it take?”

  “Hurry, hurry, that’s Arie Nesher. It’ll take a few months. So slow down, we’ll get there. And, seriously, my advice—Tamara is too lovely to lose.”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. Just bring that girl. Peter’s bringing his new English squeeze too.”

  TAMARA

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  February 1953

  Tamara was possibly the only housewife in Israel still obeying the austerity rules of the old Ministry of Rationing and Supply, which put the entire state of Israel on a diet. Nobody expected much more than 0.2 ounces of noodles per person for dinner. But if her guests couldn’t be guaranteed a good meal, they were never short on drama.

  A year earlier Arie had come home with two kilos of prime rib for Shabbat dinner, promising the feast of a lifetime, and in front of all the salivating family members Tamara had thrown the meat to the floor. “No black market food in my kitchen,” she had shouted at Arie, “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

  Arie had stormed out but a
t least he had a sense of humor because he returned three minutes later with two eggs and a lettuce and yelled, “Here, make dinner for eight with this.”

  She had shouted back, “It’s ten, can’t you count?”

  For the weekly Sabbath gathering, Natanel brought his new girlfriend, Yasmine, a young Moroccan with almond eyes, olive skin, lips like ripe peaches, and a body even more delicious. The poor culinary metaphors were Arie’s. Everything about her, he told his friend, made him want to eat her up.

  “Too bad,” Natanel said, “you’ve got your ration at home.”

  “That’s one thing the government can’t decide for us.”

  “Maybe in your case they should.”

  Tamara’s voice came from the kitchen. “Arie, where are the matches for the candles?”

  “I don’t know,” Arie called back as he sat down, offering a cigarette to Yasmine.

  There was a knock on the door and Diana Greenberg entered, followed by Peter. “I heard you, I’ve got some matches,” Diana shouted in English to Tamara, and more quietly, to nobody in particular, “do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Everybody else is,” Peter said. “Hello, Natanel, how are you, and who is this? I’m Peter.”

  “I’m Yasmine.”

  Diana’s smile to Yasmine was quick and mirthless. “I’m Diana.”

  Another knock and in came Moshe and Rachel with Ido and Estie, who ran upstairs to find the twins.

  “So what’s for dinner?” Moshe said.

  “Don’t ask,” Arie said.

  “We brought some chicken and roast potatoes.”

  “Thank God,” said Peter.

  “Don’t be unkind,” Diana laughed, on the way to the kitchen to help Tamara. There was a clattering noise from upstairs, a thud, and yelling. Silence followed by a scream, and then laughter. A briefer silence. Another thud, and the ceiling trembled. More laughter.

  “The twins,” Tamara said mournfully. “As long as there’s laughter within two seconds of a scream I know it’s all right.”