From Die Tochter (the Daughter)

Abstract

It all started with Lebanon. In the summer of 1982, Motti was supposed to be in London, where he wanted to spend a couple of weeks before flying on to New Delhi. All his friends and classmates left the country for a while after the army, if they could afford to, and even the poorest of them did everything possible to get away, be it only to Cyprus or Greece. To avoid the temptation of a premature return, those who wanted a true break from Israel bought one-way tickets to New York or L.A., procuring jobs as waiters or enrolling in Tai-Chi courses once they got there. Motti couldn't make up his mind. He wanted to begin his university studies in the near future and could hardly imagine, with his aging parents, going away for too long. A couple of months in India and Nepal would suffice to dear his mind and to still his adolescent curiosity for the great wide world, which had thus far lain beyond reach behind the fortress walls of his constrictive homeland, where everyone knew everyone-indeed everyone knew everything about everyone-and no one was allowed to waver for a single day from the side of his people in their never-ending war of survival. Like nearly all of his friends, Motti had never been abroad, and his interest in the Asian subcontinent was based on nothing more than a desire to see with his own eyes the hundred-- thousand fairy-tale colors in which, he had often heard, the native landscape, cuisine, and clothing were bathed. But as it happened, one month after his scheduled discharge from the army and one week before his planned departure, he found himself sitting back in his tank thundering toward Beirut. It was his first time in action, and whenever they fired a shot, whenever the recoil kicked the ten-ton vehicle like a empty beer can, whenever that crazy Eli let out a victory cry, shrill and fearful, from his cannon overhead, Motti went dizzy, sweating profusely and trembling as though feverish. His fear was only exceeded by his zeal. He knew that the harder they fought, the sooner they drove the Palestinians into the sea, the earlier he would be released. They raced up the coastal road like lunatics, through this ugly, flat, arid land whose brackish sea, desiccated riverbeds, decrepit houses, and strip-harvested banana fields seemed like a caricature of Israel. The landscape first changed beyond the river Al Litani. Hills suddenly emerged to the east, hills of white and green, with houses on their slopes that were more opulent than the most opulent villas in Savion. At the same time, the sea to the west began to flutter like a giant cloth of green silk against the bright June sky. Somewhere just before Sidon, two days after their last skirmish, Motti believed that the worst was now behind them. Hour by hour, his nerves settled down, his appetite returned, and he increasingly ventured brief, dreamy glances through the peephole. Smiling, he thought, who would have imagined that my first trip abroad would be like this? Then they arrived in Al-Biah. At first everything here, too, seemed to be all right. The Shiites, happy to be rid of the PLO, showered their tanks with grains of rice and offered them food and drink, and consequently it took Motti and the others a bit too long to notice that the Shiites were no Shiites. Afterward, when the whole thing was over, a depressing, cadaverous stink spread across Al-Biah, and Muamar, that son of a bitch, was nothing more than a semi-liquid mass on the cobblestones of his village. It would be autumn before Motti was out of uniform again. A mere three months had passed, but he felt as though he had already dispensed with everything that life had previously held in store for him. He had trouble sleeping and suffered frequent loss of appetite, while at other times he ate enough for two. He felt a constant trembling in his arms and legs but discovered that, when he examined them, they were absolutely still. He became irritable and was constantly yelling at his parents-he loathed his mother's temper tantrums, yet his father's gentle, reserved manner grated equally on his nerves. …