"Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses
of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and
make it possible."
Reuven leaned back, clenched his fists and stretched.
As he rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, his mouth fell open in a cavernous
yawn. With broad, work-callused fingers, he furrowed a shock of dark brown hair
back from his brow. Then, he picked up the diary from the desk in front of him
and gently pulled on its satin marker: It was August 3rd, 1999.
He thumbed forward a few pages.
"Just a week 'till the memorial meeting for
Yoni," he said to himself, manoeuvring a pen thoughtfully between his
lips.
The tragic death of Yoni,
Jeanine's only son, had been the awkward backcloth of Reuven's reunion with her
after some ten years since their previous meeting and another ten since they
had completed their geography studies together at Ben Gurion University.
Jeanine had gone on to earn a reputation as one of the best tour guides in
Israel, while Reuven had opted for land surveying.
Although she lived her
life with great passion, she had never married or chosen to acknowledgeYoni's
father publicly. Neither had she
entered into any other long-term liaison. Now she was in her mid-forties, and
Reuven was uncertain as to whether her celibacy was a matter of choice or if
her arrogance had alienated potential suitors.
Yoni died in a mortar attack near the Lebanese border
alongside two other young soldiers. The funeral was a military affair with all
the formality such ceremonies entail. Reuven recalled Jeanine's figure at the graveside,
her dramatic mane of ginger hair swept high above the sombre shades of her
mourning clothes. His instinct to reach out to her was deterred by the
appearance of an unknown figure at her side. The stranger inclined his head,
and Reuven, standing close by, observed the intimate moment when she pressed a
comforting hand into his palm. There was a disturbing beauty in her composure
in the face of tragedy.
Now, almost a year later, in the absence of close
kin, Jeanine had chosen to remember her son in the company of old friends.
Reuven smoothed the pages of his diary and wrote:
"A year ago, Yoni's soul was reborn into the
universal spiral of life. This should be a reason for celebration not for
tears."
He put the pen down again. He realised his view was
not commonly shared. Most people found the idea of the progression of the soul
beyond death hard to internalise. They needed the ritual of grief. He would be expected to attend the meeting. It was a
matter of loyalty.
"Abba"
He turned round immediately at the sound of his
daughter's voice and the excited bark of her dog.
She had a sweet round face, lovely brown eyes and
high-sculpted cheekbones, thick expressive eyebrows and a wide, full-lipped
smile. Her lush dark braids caressed her spine from the nape of her neck to the
curve of her youthfully plump thighs. At just fifteen, there was a confidence
and rhythm in her gait that already hinted at emerging womanhood. They had
named her Shahar, Tamar and he. It was the Hebrew word for dawn and so
she had been since her birth, the dawning light of his soul. The dog, a three- year old Golden Retriever, was Shahar's
greatest love and loyal companion.
"Back from the training course, are you?"
"Yes. You should have seen Muki. What a quick
learner! He was the best!"
Beautiful, clever and spirited - she was a daughter
for a father to be proud of. He beamed with pride as he got up to give her one
of his famous bear hugs. He cut a commanding masculine figure even dressed as
he was in scruffy work clothes - crudely cut denim shorts, ragged T-shirt and
boyish cotton socks tucked into the tops of field-worn sneakers.
The moment Shahar relaxed her hold on Muki, he shook
himself free and bounded into the garden almost knocking Tamar over as she came
up the path.
"Shahar. Thank God you’re back safe and sound,
dear."
The tension in Tamar's smile did not escape her
daughter.
"Why, you weren't worried were you, Ima?"
"I can’t help it. You know that road from the
kibbutz isn’t safe. It’s so deserted, and people have been attacked around
there..."
"Oh, what an Ima Polania you are!" said
Shahar, dismissing Tamar’s smothering Polish-Jewish ways with a carefree
wave of her hand.
“Anyway, Muki was with me.”
“Fine, and some magic charm was protecting you, I
suppose!”
"Exactly," laughed Reuven, who truly
believed Shahar had an untouchable aura; just like an angel.
“Shahar,
go and clean up, now. I want a word with Abba," said Tamar in a cursory
tone that meant she was taking charge.
Shahar disappeared into her bedroom at the back of
the house leaving Tamar alone with Reuven in his tiny study area off the
terrace.
"Reuven..." she began.
"Yes, my love," he said, addressing her
thus as a ploy to reassure and soothe her.
"You’re definitely going to that memorial
meeting, next week?"
"Yes," he answered warily.
"Where will you stay? Do I have to come, too?"she asked, wrinkling her nose
in distaste at the idea.
He looked at her diminished figure, casually clothed
with a modest disregard for fashion. Her fair hair was teased into manufactured
curls that framed a once pretty face.
"You don’t need to drag yourself there. I'm only
going for Jeanine's sake. Doubt there'll be anyone else there we know. Besides,
the kibbutz has got to cater for all three bereaved families, so the rooms are
going to be pretty cramped.
Reuven sat a while at his desk watching as Tamar went
about her household chores. Apparently, she had accepted his judgement without
a second thought. After all, she had only known Jeanine vaguely and a long time
ago. It was different for him. The prospect of seeing Jeanine again raised
poignant memories of those years in Beersheva after his army service. Although
they had never discussed it openly, Jeanine had demonstrated a unique
sensitivity to the essence of his life’s mission. She understood the singular
burden it placed upon him, eventually leading to his collapse into a mire of
depression. Since then, twenty years had gone by.
Tamar was the angel of mercy who had come to
his rescue, and so began the story of their love and the setting up of a home
together. Shahar's conception and the miracle of her birth sealed their joy in
the years that followed. In time, however, Tamar's love mellowed into servile
devotion and her sense of individual purpose became subdued by material
concerns. Reuven likened her to a
fragrant blossom that had never broken free of its bud. She was, he thought, so
unaware of the throne to which destiny had truly appointed her.
Now, his
inner voice was telling him his vision was soon to find real expression.
According to his word, a small nucleus of people would begin to rediscover
ancient cosmic patterns gradually learning to draw on the Planet's natural
energies to build a magnificent project for future generations. A second entry
in his diary read as follows:
"The
responsibility that has been placed upon my shoulders is not of my own choosing
and it’s a lonely burden of no small measure. The present-day custodians of the
Holy Grail* carry open wounds in their hearts, making them unaware of
the role they are to play in the scheme of things."
The inability of most men to suspend reason and grasp
enlightenment is the disillusionment of a visionary in his day. Reuven’s starry
night awaited the white blossom that would succeed the thorns.
============================================================
Explanatory
note:
*The
legendary Holy Grail was believed, in Christian tradition, to be kept in a
mysterious castle surrounded by a wasteland and guarded by a custodian, who
suffered from a wound that would not heal. His recovery and the renewal of the
blighted lands depended upon the successful completion of the knight's quest to
recover the Grail.
============================================================
The following morning, Reuven set out at six for a
typical day's work in the field. Some forty or so kilometres south of Tel-Aviv
towards Ashkelon, he manoeuvred the red Mini to a halt, stepped out of the car
and rummaged in the back to retrieve his surveying instruments and a map. Thus
equipped, he walked briskly across the road, broad shoulders slightly hunched over his generous
physique. As the sun rose to its mid-morning height, its light caught the
upward tilt of his wide oval face. He climbed across a scanty verge, noting angles and distances along the way and cross-checking them
against the indications on his map. He niftily skirted a planted cotton field where the saline irrigation
water had left a whitish residue
on the sandy topsoil and a rank saltiness lingered in the air.
He moved ahead, methodically examining the site,
checking existing measurements on the map and calculating new ones. The results
of each of his field surveys had to be entered with meticulous care into a
computerised Geographic Information System (GIS). In it, all the local features
and boundaries, natural and man-made that defined each project area were
precisely referenced.
While striving for objective accuracy in his work,
its political significance did not elude him. Struggles over land ownership, he
reflected, were at the root of so many wars through world history and not least
in the little country of Israel. It was with a conviction of individual
purpose, however, that he approached his land surveying work. He believed himself to be a designated
agent of change.
* * *
* * *
The memorial meeting turned out to be, as he had
foreseen, a sombre affair in which there was little opportunity for him to
offer any real comfort to Jeanine. The kibbutz had created an exhibit of
photographs and momentos as a tribute to the boys who died. He took his place
in the line of guests waiting to express their condolences, and all the while
he watched as Jeanine courteously received and thanked each one. Now it was his turn, and looking into
her eyes beyond the sadness he found the strength he had expected and hoped to
see there.
"Nice of you to come all this way, Reuven,"
she said and pressed his offered hand softly between both of hers.
"Yoni was your blessing in the years that were
given to you together, Jeanine," responded Reuven, rather formally as was
typical of him in heavily emotional situations such as this.
Jeanine lowered her eyes for a moment, breathing
deeply, but did not relax her hold on his tendered hand. He probed the
intensity of her expression as she lifted her face towards him. Her words,
however, surprised him:
"I thank God for that, Reuven. I believe Yoni's
passing was written in the Master Plan we spoke about long ago. Do you
remember?"
So, his confidence in her had not been misplaced.
Here, indeed, was proof of her rare spiritual understanding.
"Of course, Jeanine, " he answered softly.
Then, he gently kissed her hand, wished her well and moved along. As he had
suspected, there would be little time for any more intimate conversation with
her on this occasion. He followed the stream of guests to the memorial wall and
thought he noticed a familiar face on the far side. But what on earth could
have brought Ora Porath to this event?
Before he had a chance to discover the answer, he
heard someone calling his name.
"Pardon, please."
He returned a puzzled look towards a comely
olive-skinned woman, whose large grey-green eyes sought his. She wore a soft black wrap edged with
traditional Moroccan embroidery that afforded her an allure of gently shrouded
femininity.
"I
saw you speaking with Jeanine, just now," she hastened to
explain."She told me you know 'er, hmm, many years."
Her speech had a lightly accented quality - the
occasional dropped "h" and gutteral "r".
"That's true," he confirmed, "but we
haven’t been in touch very much recently. Are you family?"
"No. Just, well, you know..."
"Friends?"
"Yes, she's a wonderful friend," she said.
Then clutching her hands melodramatically to her heart, she added, "It's a
terrible, terrible tragédie, isn't
it?"
"Yes,” he answered, politely echoing her
sentiment. Then, distractedly, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”
"Oh yes, of course. I'm Shira
Argov."
Reuven shook her hand.
"Reuven, Reuven Sofer", he said, still
uncertain as to why she had approached him.
Then, courteously:
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Shira,"
hiding as best he could his irritation at having lost track of Ora in the
crowd.
Suddenly, he spotted her again gesticulating in his
direction and hastily excusing himself, he made off in Ora's direction.
"Hey, surprised to see you here!" he
exclaimed breathlessly as he caught up with her.
"Yup. Sad business, isn't it? Brings home what a
fragile existence we lead."
She was actually of medium height but beside Reuven
she was dwarfed. There was a classic correctness about her well-fitting
trousers and tastefully coordinated cotton top. She was flushed as she spoke to him. But then, she
had always had that tendency, as he remembered her. He had heard she had
married...
"Did you come with your family?" he asked
discreetly.
"I left Gadi at home with the kids. It's my side
of the family and distant, at that."
"Are you here because of Yoni?'
"Yoni? Oh, no. One of the other soldiers was the
son of an English couple. It's a remote connection on my father's side, but,
you know, they don't have a lot of family in Israel and I thought I ought to
come."
Reuven smiled to himself as she spoke. This was the
Ora he remembered imbued with an estimable social conscience.
"And you? Yoni? Was he family?" she asked.
"No. He was the only son of my good friend,
Jeanine."
"Have you spoken to her?"
"Only very briefly.”
“How’s she holding up?”
“It’s hard to know how she's really feeling. She's
putting on such a strong public front."
"There's something terribly impersonal about
this meeting, don't you think?"
"Yes, well I really came out of a sense of duty,
you know," said Reuven not choosing to volunteer any further comment on
the complexity of his decision to attend.
As soon as was diplomatically fitting, he coaxed Ora
away from the congregation.
"I need some air, Ora. What would you say to the
idea of riding out to the coast with me for a while?" he asked with the
air of the impromptu although he was rarely truly impulsive.
She seemed relieved to be offered a chance to escape
from the oppressive atmosphere of the meeting. So, they slipped away from the
kibbutz in the direction of Achziv.
She exuded a charming radiance and energy and there
was a coyish feminine air about her. Her chestnut hair fell in loose waves just
short of her shoulders and her cheeks were flattered into a warm glow by the afternoon breeze. Reuven
slid a glance at her and took in the understated sensuality of her pleasantly
proportioned physique, accentuated by the gentle curve of her stomach, her
girlish breasts and teasingly prominent nipples. Her essential ambiguity was
reflected in the variegated tones of her hazel eyes - none of it escaped him.
They left the car at the edge of the narrow strip of
beach and walked out onto the sand. There was an aromatic sweetness to the air.
The surf curled forward above moderately tempered waves and the clear expanse
of sea was a postcard blue. They stood side by side where the water licked the
sand.
Ora felt Reuven’s eyes assessing her and the
straight-laced woman in her struggled to suppress the wanton side already under
his spell.
She and Reuven
had grown up in the same community back in England, gone to the same schools,
eaten the same heimishe Jewish food and absorbed similar ethics. A few
years his junior, she was not one of his peer group, but they shared, you might
say, a common idiom. She
played with a few strands of hair, twisting them between finger and thumb then
flicking them nervously
away from her face.
“So, tell me more about your friendship with
Jeanine.”
“Oh, she and I were college buddies, you know. I felt
pretty close to her at one time, but our lives have rolled along different
tracks since then. Actually, she
foresaw quite accurately the way things are turning out for each of us right
now...”
Ora laughed. “Is she some kind of a seer, then?”
“Maybe so. She has insight, Ora.”
At once, Ora felt the blood rise to her cheeks,
embarrassed by her glib dismissal of something Reuven obviously treated utterly
seriously.
“What kind of thing did she predict, then?”
“She told me of the turmoil ahead of me, of the
obstacles in my way and of the roles those close to me would eventually
assume.”
"What kind of roles do you mean? Professional,
personal?" she asked, a little intimidated by his bombastic manner.
"Both. She sensed they would evolve to some
preordained stature."
Dissatisfied
with his enigmatic answer, she persisted in questioning him:
“How did
she claim to come by such knowledge?”
“She drew my astrological chart. It was the one and only time I ever indulged in
astrology."
“And you’re really into all that? As a woman, I suppose
I do believe in biorhythms and the influence of the moon and so on. I’ve never
really considered astrology, though.”
She was
beginning to feel ill at ease as he continued:
“It’s a fascinating subject. What interests me most is
its assumption that our lives are indivisible from universal patterns and
forces,” he
said, hastening to add that that did not mean he accepted all the
interpretations of the astrologists.
The way in which Reuven laid his
ideas on Ora seemed somehow calculated to test her. She shifted her weight
nervously from foot to foot as she answered:
“Oh? You don’t?”
"How can I trust theories rooted in the wrong
calendar?”
This time, however, he began to explain without
waiting for her opinion:
“I've chosen to live by the Jewish calendar; it’s
lunar-based and I think it’s much closer to the real truth."
"Maybe so,” pressed Ora stubbornly, “but you
still let Jeanine prepare a chart for you and her conclusions had an impact on
you. How do you explain that?"
He was smiling now, delighting in her animated
persistence.
"Ora, there are those who find truths in coffee
grains or who read them in the palm of a
hand. It isn’t the medium that’s important; it's the message itself. Jeanine showed me who I am to become
and what's required of me. No one
before or since has clarified my path as she did. That's why I hold her in such
high esteem."
Again, Ora wondered at Reuven's obtuse references to
messages, paths, Destiny.
He fixed his gaze on the water, his wide brow tensed,
his height moderated by the subtle curve of his shoulders. Then, he crouched
down and picked up a sharp-edged piece of flint from among the strewn debris
along the tide line. With it he began to draw a series of geometrical shapes in
the sand– a triangle, with concentric circles around it, these framed first
with a square and then with a pentagon. There was nothing casual about the
precision with which he worked. No explanation whatsoever was offered, however,
for the strangeness of his act and Ora was left to look on perplexed. Here and
there a name was scratched inside one of the circles – Shahar, Tamar,
Michaela... Nathan, Rikki... He stopped. Looked up at her.
"Does this have something to do with the roles
you talked about before, Reuven?" she ventured.
He smiled without answering, then stood up and walked
a little way back from his sand drawing as if to admire it from a distance.
There was an intangible yet undeniable mystique about the man, Ora had to
admit. Turning, he beckoned to her and curiosity carried her captive in his
wake.
They walked together some way along the beach line,
which extended northward beyond Rosh Hanikra all the way into Lebanon. Ora followed in his determined stride
over the rock pools and the scrub. In a courtyard to their right, in the shade
of a low, stone wall, a boy was kicking a ball. Reuven called to him, "Shu
ismek?" - "What's your name?"
Straight away,
the answer came back: "Ismi Ahmed". The boy's ageless Arab guardian
offered them a pitcher of water and gestured towards a shaded bench onto which
Reuven slung his blue canvas shoulder-bag. They sat down and drank together as Ahmed danced circles
around Reuven. Ora watched with delighted fascination the ease of Reuven's
connection with the boy as though all his wordly cares had been miraculously lifted from him by the boy's lively
and unconditional laughter. Reuven
picked up the ball and tossed it light-heartedly back to Ahmed. She felt glad
she had agreed to accompany Reuven here. There was no denying the magic of such
an uncomplicated scene on this unspoilt, scarcely inhabited stretch of coast.
Ten minutes or so later, they returned the pitcher to
its owner and began to walk back along the beach. From the bar terrace above
them wafted the sounds of the Army Radio playing the popular song, "Ah,
God is Good". Reuven
eagerly negotiated the stone steps that wound up to the terrace where, without
a hint of inhibition, he began to dance in private communion with the music.
Ora hesitated briefly before joining him.
It was already late afternoon when they sat down to
eat. Served on a large, white ceramic platter were tabbouleh, labane sprinkled with ground mountain thyme, pita hot
from the wood-fired oven, small local olives and mugs of limonana – a
cool drink of lemon and fresh spearmint.
"Hmm. This all looks delicious," delighted
Ora, “I love the smell of the fresh pita! Now tell me more about Jeanine's
insights. Who are the people close to you and what roles are they destined to
play? What did she really mean about your path and its obstacles?"
As if by
way of reply, he reached for his bag and took out a folded chart. Ora wrinkled
her nose at its mustiness as he spread it out over the table. It was a family
tree. Fascinated, she watched him earnestly tracing and retracing in it the
landmarks of his lineage. He pointed to three names in the centre of the family
tree, and said:
“Three women are intimately connected with me by
birth and by marriage:
– Shahar, my daughter, the dawning
light of my soul.
– Michaela, my sister, protector of my
spirit and giver of God's strength.
– Tamar, my wife: Born of the house of
Ruth, revered matriarch by whose leap of faith the Earth's Redeemer is to
descend.”
Ora
bent over the chart to study the Sofer family tree more closely. She noticed the many nameless spaces in
it, particularly in the generation of his grandparents. Her suspicions as to the reason for
this were quickly confirmed by the brief historical account that followed:
"My mother and father were separated from their
parents as young children and despatched from Austria to England by
Kindertransport to escape the Nazis at the onset of World War II. We can only
presume all those unnamed siblings and cousins, uncles and aunts subsequently
fell as victims of the Holocaust. They were, at any rate, never heard of
again.”
Reuven's pompous oratory manner did not fool Ora -
She recognised it as his adopted emotional shield. He described the damaging
effect his mother’s early life trauma had had upon her ability to relate
normally to anyone. As she listened to the dry acrimony with which he
told of his alienation from his mother, Ora realised how totally different his
childhood had been from her own. A welling sadness filled the pit of her
stomach.
"I'm sure, deep down your mother cared for
you," she insisted.
"I felt her only as an obsessive domination of
my life and denial of the essence of my being."
"And your father?" she asked.
"Oh, we used to be quite close, but he's old and
frail now, and there's no real dialogue between us any more."
As
Reuven spoke, his facial muscles visibly contracted against the pain of his
admissions. Wounded child of a wounded mother, identification with this family
tree was nevertheless, it would seem, a major driving force in his life. Ora
scanned the chart again for clues to the underlying links between the tragic
story of Reuven's family and his present mission. Perhaps it was his sensing of her perplexity that caused him to
exclaim:
"It's because my soul cries out to them in their
blindness! Look at the direct line of their descent from the House of David and
the stock of Moses."
His eyes acquired a half-crazed look as he stabbed
frenetically with his index finger at the charted ancestral line. In the explanation that followed, he focused on the significance of names and goaded
Ora's curiosity all the more:
"You asked about the roles to be played by those
close to me, Ora. You’ll find all the answers to your question in names. Look
at our own
names, for example: By mine I'm connected
in spirit with the eldest son of Jacob, patriarch of Israel. Ora, you're a
woman of light in Hebrew and in Latin you're the seashore. Our names unite us in this place of our meeting
both with our history and with our
land."
"And what about the future, Reuven? Do you see names as the key to that, too?"
He looked up at her, and focused searchingly into her
gaze
"Ora," he almost whispered. "You'll understand
in time, but first I must tell
you about my dream."
He paused and drew several audible breaths before the
nakedness of the moment.
"You can tell me, Reuven, I'm listening. Go
on," she urged, trembling as his intensity drove into her consciousness.
"I want to bring planetary awareness into the
lives of people all over the world,” he declared. “My vision involves the
building of a huge project. It will be a live information network aligned with
universal patterns. It will give people to a total “hands-on” experience of the
Planet as never seen before."
"That sounds like the challenge of a
lifetime," Ora gently replied, and he answered it would be exactly that.
In the same instant, liquid sunlight illuminated the
half-buried edifices and signs of former travellers in the Galilee sands.
Flattered by the faith Reuven had demonstrated in her
with his unexpected disclosure, Ora felt she should respond supportively.
Instead, however, she found herself struggling to make sense of the tantalizing
puzzle.
"How did you conceive of the idea?"
"I suppose it grew out of my professional
connection with the land."
"But this sense of personal mission that seems
to drive you..."
"Ah, Ora. You're looking for so many answers, so
fast. This is something I've been
carrying around for years unspoken in my belly until now."
Ora looked directly up at him, aghast.
"You're surely not saying I'm the very first
person you've told any of this to?"
He smiled at her affectionately and nodded.
"But what about Jeanine?"
"Jeanine has an instinctive understanding of many
things. Her knowledge of my
mission is on a different level entirely.
You see, all my life I've been acutely aware of my spiritual link with
our Planet and the generations of its inhabitants. I believe in the eventual
transcendence of humanity into a multidimensional existence. My project will be
an important stepping-stone in that direction. One might say my dream is new, but actually it's just a
phase in the Master Plan that has existed since the beginning of
time."
"So, Jeanine doesn't know about your dream of a
global networking project?"
"Global networking?"
"Isn't that what you were talking about?"
"I guess that's not a bad way of putting
it."
“And the
names?” asked Ora. "The ones you etched in the sand..."
“Family, friends, co-project workers – a nucleus
that's already starting to come together.”
"So, tell me, Reuven. Where do you intend to
build your project?"
"On the highest ground overlooking
Jerusalem."
"Jerusalem," she repeated. "I
see."