Breakfast in the Ruins

14 The Road to Tel-Aviv: 1947 Traps

—What does money mean to you, Karl?

— Well, security, I suppose, first and foremost.

— You mean it can buy you security. A house, food, the obvious comforts, power over others.

— I'm not sure about power over others. What has that to do with security?

— Oh it must have something to do with it.

At nineteen, Karl is bent on vengeance and the regaining of his rights. He has a.303 Lee Enfield rifle, some hand grenades, a bayonet and a long dagger. He wears a khaki shirt and blue jeans. On his head is a burnoose. He stands on the bank overlooking the winding road to Tel-Aviv. He lifts his head proudly into the sun.

— You can keep yourself to yourself, says Karl with a grin.—Can't you.

— As long as others do. The dweller in the suburbs, Karl, must pursue a policy of armed neutrality.

— I was brought up in the suburbs. I never saw it like that. I don't know what things are like in Nigeria, mind you...

At nineteen, Karl has a girl whom he has left behind in Joppa. There are five friends with him on the road. He sees a dust-cloud approaching. It must be the jeep. With the veil of his burnoose, Karl covers his mouth against the dust.

— Much the same, says Karl's friend.—Much the same.

KARL WAS NINETEEN. His mother had been gassed, his father had been gassed. At least, that was as far as he knew. He had been lucky. In 1942 he and his uncle had managed to sneak into Palestine and had not been caught as illegal immigrants. But Karl had soon realized the injustice of British rule and now he belonged to the Irgun Tsva'i Leumi, pledged to drive the British out of Palestine if they had to kill every single British man, woman or child to do it. It was time the Jews turned. There would never be another pogrom against the Jews that was not answered in kind. It was the only way.

He squinted against the glare of the sun, breaking with some difficulty through the gauze of his headdress. The air was dry dusty and stale. There was no doubt about the single jeep droning along the road from Abid to Tel-Aviv. It was British. He gestured down to his friend David. David, too, was masked. David, too, had a Lee Enfield rifle. He handed up the field-glasses to Karl. Karl took them, adjusted them, saw that there were two soldiers in the jeep -a sergeant and a corporal. They would do.

Further along the road, in the shade of a clump of stunted palms, waited the rest of the section. Karl signaled to them. He swept the surrounding hills with his glasses to check that there was no one about. Even a goatherd could prove an embarrassment, particularly if he were an Arab. The parched hills were deserted.

You could hear the jeep quite clearly now, its engine whining as it changed gear and took an incline.

Karl unclipped a grenade from his belt.

The others left the shade of the palms and got into the ditch behind the bank, lying flat, their rifles ready. Karl looked at David. The boy's dark eyes were troubled. Karl signaled for David to join him. He pulled the pin from the grenade. David imitated him, unclipping a grenade, pulling out the pin, holding down the safety.

Karl felt his legs begin to tremble. He felt ill. The heat was getting to him. The jeep was almost level. He sprang up, steadied himself on the top of the bank, and threw the grenade in a gentle, graceful curve. It was a beautiful throw. It went straight into the back seat of the jeep. The soldiers looked astonished. They glanced back. They glanced at Karl. The jeep's pace didn't slacken. It blew up.

There was really no need for the second grenade which David threw and which landed in the road behind the remains of the jeep.

The two soldiers had been thrown out of the wreckage. They were both alive, though broken and bleeding. One of them was trying to draw his side-arm. Karl walked slowly towards him, his.303 cocked. With a casual movement of his foot he kicked the pistol from the sergeant's hand as the man tried to get the hammer back. The sergeant's face was covered in blood. Out of the mess stared two blue eyes. The ruined lips moved, but there were no words. Nearby, the corporal sat up.

The rest of the group joined Karl.

"I'm glad you weren't killed," Karl said in his guttural English.

"Aaah!" said the corporal. "You dirty Arab bastards." He hugged his broken right arm.

"We are Jews," said David, ripping his mask down.

"I don't believe it," said the corporal.

"We are going to hang you," said Karl, pointing at the palms, visible beyond the bank.

David went to look at the jeep. The whole back section was buckled and one of the wheels was off. Some piece of machinery still gasped under the bonnet. David reached into the jeep and turned the engine off. There was a smell of leaking petrol. "It's not much use to us," said David.

"What do you bloody mean?' said the corporal in horror. "What the fuck do you bloody mean? "

"It's a message," said Karl, "from us to you."

— I've made up my mind, says Karl's friend as he busily massages Karl's buttocks.—I'm going to take you with me when I go home. You'll like it. It isn't everyone I meet I'd do that for.

Karl makes no reply. He is feeling rather detached. He doesn't remember when he felt so relaxed.

You are very attracted to a girl of about seventeen who is the daughter of one of your parent's friends. The girl lives with her parents in the country. You take every opportunity to see her (you are not much older than her, yourself) but although you take her out to formal parties a couple of times and to the cinema once, you can't be sure how she feels towards you. The more you see of her the more you want to make love to her. But you realize she is quite young and you don't want to see yourself in the role of the seducer. You would feel perfectly happy about it if she made the first move. But she is shy. She plainly likes you. Probably she is waiting for you to make the first move. You are passing through the part of the world where she and her parents live and you decide to visit the house and ask if you can stay the night, as it's quite late. You rather hope that, at last, you will be able to find an opportunity to make love to the girl.

You arrive at the house. The door is opened by the girl's mother, an attractive woman in her early forties. She is very welcoming. You tell her your story and she says that of course you can stay, for as long as you like. She regrets that you will not be able to see her husband because he is away for some days on a business trip. Her daughter is out—"with one of her boyfriends." You feel disappointed.

You have dinner with the mother and you and she drink quite a lot of wine. The mother makes no doubt about the fact that she finds you attractive. After dinner sitting together on a couch, you find that you are holding hands with her.

You have a mixture of feelings. She is attractive and you do feel that you want to make love, but you are rather afraid of her experience. Secondly, you feel that if you sleep with her, it will complicate the situation so much that you will never have an opportunity to make love to her daughter, whom you feel you could easily fall in love with. You also need the mother's good will.

Would you get up from the couch and make an excuse in order to go to bed. Would you make love to the mother up to a point and then claim that you were too drunk to go further. Would you pretend to be ill? Would you give in completely to your desires of the moment and sleep with the mother, in spite of the inevitable situation which this would lead to? Would you hope that the daughter would be so intrigued by your having slept with her mother that she would make it clear that she, too, wanted to sleep with you (you have heard that such things happen)? Or would you feel that the whole problem was too much, leave the house and resolve never to see any member of the family ever again?