Independence Day In Kiryat Shmoneh

Bossin, Gadi

INDEPENDENCE DAY IN KIRYAT SHMONEH GADI BOSSIN "I've never seen him in real life before," the girl behind us says to her companion. "Just on television and in the newspapers. He's pudgy, isn't...

...Roni asked...
...She falls asleep on the sofa after supper...
...840 bus that goes from Kiryat Shmoneh to Tel Aviv...
...I'm not going to make it," Donna tells me...
...Where are the shoulders...
...They've brought a bugle and drum youth corps and they march with pride and discipline...
...Roni asks indignantly...
...So does the dark beauty on my right...
...For the previous hour we've been killing time...
...We have more room...
...I think about reserve duty, guys like me at the front, the fun we have together, the fear patrolling the security fences after dark, the chill standing watch with a rolling fog coming up and blinding us to all movement beyond ten meters, the terse radio communications, the final night's celebration, the pride in having done our duty...
...I think they teach that kind of smile at the Staff College...
...Who dat man was...
...They're all coming...
...We've been answering, "Soon...
...He teaches American literature at Tel Aviv University and English language at Tel Hai College...
...We stop to pick up two hitchhiking soldiers on the way out of town: a young regular army corporal and a reservist, fortyish and fat...
...I inquire...
...Bobby lies to Pamela about where he got Christopher...
...He'll make a great tankist," the young soldier tells me...
...Roni is asleep...
...Yes," he says confidently...
...Indeed he is, I thought...
...She moves on...
...I grin uneasily...
...and Ray and Miss Elly are still upset over Jock's death...
...The parade"ends...
...And we know they are the first to suffer when the PLO breaks the cease-fire...
...A half hour later we are home...
...Do you understand, Roni...
...She says, "You made a mistake...
...left . . . left-right, left-right...
...Roni moves over...
...She tells me Roni has a new girlfriend...
...Where are the tanks...
...We're nervous she may leave her job to go to Haifa...
...She's a wonderful teacher but unmarried, without real prospects in our small town...
...Now we're to blame for the Falkland Islands crisis," snorts the fat reservist...
...There is, however, one unit that knows how to march: the contingent from Major Haddad's Lebanese Christian militia...
...I want to be a chayal," Roni announces...
...And then the weather report...
...The lady at the kiosk is selling them for 6 shekels a scoop...
...Elbows" sits down on the curb...
...We look at a few other displays before leaving...
...When's the parade coming...
...It's just his face...
...That ends our Independence Day programming...
...Our schlemieli guys and gals seem to respond to the officers' admonitions, but fail and then grin sheepishly or smile ironically or assume serious expressions exhibiting exaggerated concentration on the mission...
...ther (he's all elbows until I point out that Donna's pregnant...
...At this year's Chanu-kah celebrations in Hatzor Haglilit, Raful arrived in the mayor's 1600cc Ford Cortina, squeezed in with the local dignitaries...
...The crowd applauds rhythmically, encouraging the militiamen...
...I show Donna and Roni the weapons I've trained on already and those that are new...
...Dat man is the big shoulder...
...We love them...
...We pick it up on Jordan TV...
...I picture a sticky-sweet banana-strawberry mess running down my neck and back We're on the town's main boulevard opposite the single Kiryat Shmoneh hotel...
...Illogically I imagine we'll see the same sort of demonstration of might here today...
...Donna kisses him...
...We tell him...
...No, no...
...The car radio is on...
...They march by, grave and proud...
...Nonsense," he goes on...
...When he got out of the car everyone crowded around close to him, the three of us included...
...The friend responds, "No...
...Soon...
...Was she here with a guy...
...He's pudgy, isn't he...
...Roni is thrilled...
...I think about that girl second lieutenant and the slogan penned on her unit's insignia hanging from her epaulet: "liana ?., date of release [from the army], April 24, 1983...
...In any case, it's clear it doesn't matter...
...The broadcast continues: "The UN Security Council is drafting a resolution noting Israel's unwillingness to reach a peaceful settlement of the Mideast crisis...
...I add a drop of a second flavor...
...Special for the kids...
...The officers try valiantly to call the cadence: "Left-right, left-right, left...
...A female soldier (a second lieutenant) is ordering everyone to move back off the curb behind the restraining ropes...
...Elbows" cracks for all to hear: "Thank God, these fellows are defending our^north-ern border...
...That's fine...
...Eitan has just been whisked past us in a black four-door Plymouth Valiant, circa 1973 or 1974...
...We're only going as far south as Hatzor," I tell them...
...Donna and I agree to take him to the armored corps display...
...Just last week the area was tense...
...So do I. "Come on," she says...
...It's to no avail...
...Donna wants to know as I hand over the ice cream...
...They're talking about Rafael Eitan, "Raful," our Chief of Staff...
...Roni's been asking, "When's the parade coming...
...He hadn't told us...
...Our soldiers march poorly and we joke about that...
...Among them is a small arms exhibit...
...They release their ammunition clips from their weapons and get in the back seat...
...We are weary but Roni scampers all over all the tanks and other armored vehicles...
...We've been waiting since 3 o'clock...
...On the way back I meet Roni's nursery school teacher...
...We tried to explain: "He's the most important soldier in the army...
...It'll help," says one of them...
...asks Roni in his four-year-old's Hebrew-syntaxed and Hebrew-accented English...
...Unlike the girl standing behind us, we've seen Raful "in real life" before...
...Dallas' is on later," I remind her...
...The winner of this year's International Jewish Youth Bible Contest is...
...He sits in the reviewing stand, squeezed in with the local dignitaries...
...When...
...He smiled, but gravely...
...I order banana with strawberry, strawberry with banana, and cherry with chocolate...
...The broadcaster makes ironic note of the from-now-on permanent omission and says: "Good night...
...Ha...
...If you'd looked away you wouldn't have seen him," my wife says...
...Yes...
...But instead of the spit-and-polish marchers, the rolling cannon, the anti-tank missiles, the tanks, the armored infantry and the flash and sweep and roar of an air force flyover (this we see in the North on another basis), we see five mounted representatives of local kibbutzim and moshavim trot by on Arabian horses, assorted marching units representing the various branches of the service, some chanting youth groups and a few jeep formations with stiffly saluting lieutenants...
...I'm exhausted...
...I carry him into our apartment, lay him on his bed, undress him and put on his pajamas...
...It's now 4 p.m...
...Soon...
...We want Roni to speak English...
...In the car on the way home I think about the world press labeling us a militant nation craving war and conquest...
...Copyright © 1982 by Gadi Bossin...
...I tell Donna I haven't been to an Independence Day military parade since I went to one in Haifa in 1966...
...Who dat man was...
...The parade is about to begin," she declares .Noneofusbelieves her...
...He's put this question every four or five minutes...
...Dat man with the red hat...
...I want to go up...
...left...
...He wants to sit on my shoulders...
...The news broadcaster tells us that the British are annoyed with us for selling fighter aircraft to the Argentinians...
...No, she's with two girlfriends...
...We sigh...
...Thirty-four years to independent Israel...
...It's Wednesday...
...But we and those about us and I daresay the whole crowd enjoy ourselves...
...Soon," I tell him, thinking it's only fourteen more years...
...I owe you 36...
...then he stops pushing), and a lovely coffee-complected, long-haired young woman of Indian descent whom I recognize from the No...
...Sue Ellen is snubbed by a jealous friend who thinks she's stealing her husband...
...I'll get us something to eat...
...We waved to him...
...Who...
...It's a disappointment...
...He waved back...
...A soldier takes Roni inside a tank, puts a tankist's helmet on him, shows him how to fire the big gun, how to talk through the intercom, how to command the tank, how to drive it...
...It's the late news with the weather report with no reading for Sinai...
...How does he do that...
...Roni demands: "Where are the tanks...
...Before switching off the set, I check to see what's on Israel...
...We exchange regards...
...We smiled back, broadly...
...Eitan has come to Kiryat Shmoneh to view the Independence Day military parade...
...For the first time in years the Sinai beaches were not packed with celebrating Israelis on Independence Day...
...Sure, what flavors...
...He's not as heavy as his face makes him look...
...I'm too tired...
...We stand behind double ropes, squeezed between a short, beret-wearing, stubble-bearded, tobacco-smelling, North-African-accented, sixtyish, wry-joke-cracking grandfaGadi Bossin is a Canadian-American now living in the Upper Galilee...
...I don't even know where the Falklands are...
...I doze off, too...
...Where are the tanks...
...The customer before me gets three doubles for 18 shekels...
...The resolution*calls for sanctions against Israel...
...People from all over the Upper Galilee panhandle have come to see the parade...
...Can I get the same deal...
...It takes us 15 minutes to get there on foot...
...I wake up just before midnight...
...I go to buy ice cream cones...
...Then you do the dishes...
...He's the biggest chayalT "Yes, he's the biggest soldier...
...Finish your ice cream first...

Vol. 7 • July 1982 • No. 7


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.