Don't show me your gun

 

Netanela shifted her laptop bag from one shoulder to the other. The evening sun was flooding downtown Jerusalem with soft pink shadows. She had perhaps a quarter of an hour for window shopping, before Sarina was going to show up. The lights over Jaffa Street and the light railway line flickered on, reflected in the advancing purple blanket of the night. Looking up, Netanela almost tripped over the wire laid down by a street vendor, who was busy retrieving delicious-smelling pieces of corn on the cob from a giant electric pot. Over his head, a large speaker was blasting out “Bailando”, and the vendor’s hands seemed to be dancing in tune. Soon, very soon, the chilly autumn breeze will grow into winter storms, and the windows of every Jewish home will broadcast the flickering message of Chanuka miracle. She walked briskly past the bakery and the toy shop, then slowed down for the clothes shop. Turning into the pedestrian area, she fancied having a cone of chips, they smelled so delicious, but it really wouldn’t do to let her former classmate see her consuming junk. In school, Netanela had been a perfectionist, a high achiever and a social leader, only to find her dreams shattered a year after graduation by a skiing accident that caused a minor haemorrhage in her brain. She got most of her functions back, but not the ability to focus. Now in her late thirties, she was struggling through a social work degree in a nearby college. Alas, some things in life had to be just accepted, like those everlasting headaches.

Sarina was visiting from America, and there was really no better place to meet in all of Jerusalem than Ben Yehuda Street. Netanela sat down at a table by the famous Katsefet ice cream shop, and just waited.

Sarina ran up, her long blonde hair flying in the gusts of the chilly wind that every sunset brings to the North-to-South oriented streets of Jerusalem. Netanela frowned at how the waiter at the Rimon café across the road was eyeing her friend, measuring her head to toe. Well, there was definitely something to measure – Sarina still had a perfect body, despite having two kids and living a life of leisure with her second husband. Her own small frame was swallowed up in Sarina’s powerful hug, and Netanela recalled something about her friend serving in the military.

They settled down to three scoops of coffee, chocolate and pistachio to share, and all the stories that had not been told in fifteen years. Sarina’s children, a son and a daughter, attended a lucrative high school, with offered an Olympic-size swimming pool, horseback riding in the vast grounds, in a circle between the shadowy oak wood and the little lake with swans, and even a crash course in law, complete with all the Latin terms. Netanela sighed – one of the things her accident claimed was the hope of an easy motherhood. A pregnancy might bring on another stroke – and even though it was her decision to make, she hadn’t dared just yet to risk her life for a being that would depend on her for the next twenty years. “Don’t be silly,” – Sarina tried to comfort her. – “They are really needy only for the first five years or so.” Netanela burst out laughing. “As if that’s so reassuring.”

She continued to analyse her friend’s perfect nails and make up, inhaling her perfume, wondering if she should perhaps make some changes to her own looks. Jeans are hardly feminine… if only she could radiate sex appeal in all directions like Sarina… Then she chuckled at her own thoughts. As if this powerful message her friend broadcasted could be ascribed to any one detail – make up, or perfume, or clothes. Sarina was loved, that's all.

Netanela began recounting her most recent tale of woe with her father’s deteriorating health, when she realized that Sarina was not looking at her. In fact, she was staring, wide-eyed, somewhere beyond her back, and looking terrified. Almost as if by command, the pulsing energy of the she-wolf in heat was replaced by a steely demeanour of a combat soldier. In one swift leap Sarina flew over the barrier that separated the ice cream shop from the café, heals and all, and pulled Netanela after her. “Come! Before he spots you!”- and she ducked down again. Looking up in the direction her friend indicated, Netanela saw a young Israeli soldier with a combat rifle. Well, she knew he was a soldier, even though he was not wearing his uniform. Living in Israel, you just know. His freckled face, curly reddish hair and the casual habit of throwing his gun over his buttocks identified him unmistakably as “one of our boys”. Furthermore, he had the usual chain with his ID number on a metal plate hanging off his neck, just like all the other soldiers.

“Don’t be silly! He’s just a soldier!” – Netanela whispered. The last thing she wanted was attention to her friend’s strange behaviour, and people were already beginning to turn their heads. Jerusalem was full of madmen, but usually they also looked strange… unlike Sarina. She noticed that her friend was shaking. “Come on, seriously! It’s OK!”

“But he’s got a gun! Can’t you see?” – she panted, her body still gathered up by a well-practiced fight or flight response.

“So what! It’s just a soldier! You are acting weird!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am! Look!”

The soldier, in the meantime, took his falafel from the seller and started wolfing it down, opening his mouth wide for every bite, pieces of the finely-chopped salad and pita littering the ground between his white sneakers.

Sarina peeked cautiously over the barrier, then ducked again. Her breaths became even more rapid. She was shaking.

Netanela decided to give up on any ridiculous propriety, and settled down on the still warm pavement next to her friend. “Do you really think a terrorist would treat himself to a last meal right in front of us all?” – she offered. “Why the hell not?” – Sarina answered. - “You don’t understand. They would explode a barrel of fuel in front of us, and whoever didn’t jump fast enough, was burnt.” – she continued.

“In Iraq?”

“Yeah…”

“Who is they?”

But there was no answer, Sarina’s teeth were clattering and she could not find her voice.

“In Israel, people with guns mean safety. When I see a soldier, I know I am protected”.

Sarina ignored that. Then, in a small shaking voice, she continued:

“My friend Aria. We were deployed in Basra. Operation “Charge of the Knights”. Mortars falling everywhere.” – Sarina stopped for a breath. “We were forced to pull back to the airport. Aria stepped on a mine just as she turned to tell me to hurry up, so I saw everything. The shock on her face. She just looked so damn surprised. And she kept on trying to reach her gun. Just to grab it, at any cost. Her arm… Her gun…” – Sarina swallowed hard. Netanela passed her a water bottle, and watched her friend’s shaking hand struggling to find her mouth.

“Did she survive?”

“Are you kidding me? We couldn’t see the air for shelling. There was no way to evacuate her.”

Then she added reluctantly, “My daughter is named after her, so this way she is always with me.”

Netanela was silent, remembering her own experiences. The day when a bomb went off in the shuk, not even a kilometer from here, and she had been on the bus two streets down. The day when… and another. More… the faces in the news. The wailing mothers, fathers and brothers contorted by grief, shown in every detail by the national TV. The way Israel holds its collective breath, waiting for the names, knowing full well it will happen again. And again. Is that really why she was delaying her pregnancy?

They sat in silence for a while.

Netanela pulled her friend up from behind the barrier. The soldier was long gone, without ever becoming aware of the commotion he caused. The ice cream had melted, and an emaciated stray cat was licking up the mess.

“My kids cover me up. They know when I’m about to freak, and hide me – in public bathrooms, in the car…” – Sarina hugged herself to stop the shaking.

Netanela was puzzling over her thoughts just a few minutes ago. Hair and nails? That’s all people see, huh. And she was no better.

“Tell me how it really was for you. From the beginning, and don’t miss out anything. If it would help.”