Unexpected Revelations

The worst day in Yigal's life.  In many ways, the last day of his life, at least the last day of hope and laughter and love. As often happened, he met Ariela on the way up the hill toward the trampiada, the spot beside the main road into Gush Etzion where they all stood hoping to hitch hike into the city until one of the infrequent buses came. Ariela was as beautiful as always, her eye shone as she smiled, her set of perfect white teeth gleamed in the morning light. She often wore her hair in long braids, but today it was upbraided, tied into a loose ponytail with some sort of colored elastic cloth.  Yigal came up behind her stealthily as possible as they both walked up the relatively steep in line.

"Boker tov!" he greeted her, sensing she wasn't as surprised as he had hoped she'd be from his boyish prank.

"You shouldn't surprise people like that Yigal!" was her only greeting.

He decided it better to apologize and move on than try to discuss the relative merits of boyish pranks. "Sorry. I guess I'm used to walking quietly." he prevaricated, alluding to his days in the elite Israeli paratrooper unit.

"That's no excuse." Ariella answered, and again ignored him as she struggled up the hill with a large knapsack on her back.

"I can help with that, if you'd like?" he offered, gently indicating that his back was free to accept cargo.

"That's okay, I prefer to carry it myself." But after a moment, apparently realizing that her words might be perceived as somehow petty or spiteful she added, "I need to get used to travelling with my 'home' on my back. I'm leaving in the fall for a trip out East."

Surprised, Yigal did not remember her even thinking about the possibility of such an adventure, he blurted out,"Since when? I mean ... " he struggled to find words that wouldn't make him sound possessive or commandeering, "I don't remember you talking about travelling!"

The surprise was apparently evident in his voice.  Ariela stopped at the point on the road where it turned East to climb the last bit of hill before it reached the plateau of the Judean Hills where most of the communities of Gush Etzion could be found. Behind her, as Yigal looked toward the West, was the magestic panorama of the drop of the Judean Hills down to the foot hills below, and beyond them the long narrow and relatively flat coastal plain.  If he wanted to, he could probably make out the silhouettes of Tel Aviv to the North and Ashdod and Ashkelon to the South, and the dozens of smaller towns and cities between them, nestled as they were close to the shore of the  Mediterranean.  A Mediterranean that looked dark blue from Yigal's vantage point.  A blue that melted seamlessly into the blue of the sky on some ill defined horizon far out to sea.  

Suddenly that is exactly how he felt, 'far out at sea'. Ariella had always been his  closest friend, his confidant, and he had always thought he had been hers.  Now he discovered that she was leaving without having even discussed it with him.  Leaving for months.  He quailed at the thought.

"How long are you going to be away?"

"I really don't know.  It all depends."

"Depends on what?" he could hear his voice grow sharper and more demanding but he couldn't help but let the words come out as they would.

"Yigal ..."  Ariela started but stopped.  She stopped speaking, she also stopped looking at him.  He could see her eyes looking up the hill toward the trampiada. He waited for an answer.  Neither of them moved.

Returning her gaze to him, in a quiet but resolute voice she answered him.  "It depends upon what David and I decide."

"David?  You're travelling with David?"

"Yes.  David and I have been seeing each other for quite a while and we planned this trip together."  As if she felt it somehow urgently necessary, she hurriedly added, "We're not getting married or anything, at least not yet."

"But ..." was all that Yigal could manage to respond.

"But what?" she challenged.

Yigal simply could not understand how everything could have gone wrong so quickly, but then, 'quite a while', he guessed it wasn't so quick after all.

"I'm sorry.  I thought we were friends?"

"We were.  I mean, we are!" Ariela drew closer to help dispel the sense she feared him or was angry.  "Yigal, I love you like a brother, but a brother is not a boy friend."

"But I thought ..."

"Yes I know what you thought, or at least I started understanding in the last few months, but I didn't know how to say it.  I didn't want to hurt you.  The truth is, maybe I was afraid of losing you ... losing you as a friend."

"You won't!" Yigal blurted out.  "I wouldn't!"

"It's not so simple Yigal."  With that she took his hand in hers.  They had never intentionally touched.  Religiously observant Jews avoided touching others of the opposite gender till marriage. 

"Please understand.  I'm still your friend."  With that she left him standing there and continued the last twenty meters up the hill and beyond his sight.  Yigal didn't move.  He couldn't remember why he had left the house that morning or where he was supposed to be going.  All he knew was that the most important person in his life, the person he secretly hoped would be there all his life, was no longer there for him.  She's be 'there' for someone else, but not for him.  

A car stopped and the driver asked him if he wanted a lift? 'A lift to where?' he thought, and with that he declined and started walking back down the hill.  Back home to the emptiness of his life that had been shattered by what seemed a chance conversation.

'When did she think she was going to tell him?' The thoughts churned as he later laid on his bed.  It seemed like all morning his cellphone chirped, but he ignored it.  Buried as it was in the recesses of his side bag.  'Should he answer it?"  'Was it Ariela?"

When his mother burst in sometime after one o'clock he knew something tragic had happened.  When his normally reserved and very proper mother threw herself on him, clutching him in her arms, tears streaming down her face, fear gripped his heart like never before in his life.

"What is it?" Yigal whispered in his mothers ear as she gripped him even tighter.

"The number 32 bus ..." she started, but her voice broke down.

Yigal intuitively knew there had been another suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus.  His mother's fears that he had been on the bus many residents of Gush Etzion take upon arriving in the city were clear and understandable.  It was her next remark that stopped his heart - ended the world he thought he knew until that moment.

"Abba and I were convinced you were on it with Ariela!"

"Ariela was on the bus?"

"You didn't know?" His mothers  tears started afresh, only this time her anguish was not just for herself but for him as well.

Ariela's funeral was the next day.  It took that long to identify the body parts and ensure that the correct pieces were buried with the right name.  He didn't weep.  In fact, from the moment his mother told him they had announced the names of the first identified victims on the radio, he didn't feel a thing.  It was as if his heart had turned to stone.  He forgot his anger and his sense of betrayal. 

Days later he discovered that Ariela' number was listed on his cellphone as one of the many unanswered calls.  Her call had come in at 11:47, exactly seconds before the bomb went off that had brutally ended her life. She didn't even get the chance to leave him a voice mail. From time to time as the months passed he would wonder, if the bomber had given her another two or three minutes to live, what might she have said in her message.  He'd never know.

Yigal never told anyone what transpired between Ariela  and him that morning. Out of respect for what they perceived to be his loss, no one pried.  Only he knew, Ariela had 'died' for him before she lost her life.  His world had ended before she got on that bus for her fateful last journey.

Graduation

Sarah smiled as she recalled the day her parents finally understood her intentions.  It was her graduation day.  The actual ceremony was short and a blur. Dressed in her gown and hat she strode up to the podium and received her degree, and the accolades of her peers.  Afterward, before the private parties the various student groups organized to mark this rite of passage, and in most cases the demise of whatever social framework they had belonged to for the past three or four years, her family took her out to a lavish dinner at one of Boston's better seafood restaurants.

The irony was apparent to her even then, but now she had to laugh out loud. As course after delicious course was brought to the table her mother and aunt discussed her options, where she should look for work, where she might want to live. The entire discussion she managed to avoid responding until one point she felt it no longer honest to let them continue any further.

"Actually, I intend to travel for a while."

"To Europe or somewhere else exotic?" her aunt pressed for more details.

"In a manner of speaking yes." but Sarah realized she couldn't avoid the truth any longer. "Next month I'm travelling to Israel."

"What are you going when you get back?" her mother asked cautiously, as if she sensed something from the way Sarah answered her aunt's inquiries.

"Actually I intend to remain in Israel indefinitely and work there."

The table became silent. It appeared everybody at her end, her father, uncles, cousins and brother had had one ear attuned to the guest of honour.  They had all heard what was for her liberal left wing nominally Jewish family, heresy.  It was her father that saved the moment.

"Sally, that sounds absolutely marvelous! How long have you been thinking about this decision?"

"Well ..." Sarah remembered hesitating for a moment.  She was pleased her father sounded supportive, but wasn't exactly interested in discussing her life plans in such a public forum. "The last time I visited Israel I spent most of my six weeks visiting people involved in the photography industry, all kinds of different people with different specialties to get a feel for the employment possibilities.  I also spent time with other young North American professionals who had made the decision to live in these words was in Israel ..." her mother's audible gasp at hearing these words was unxxxxxable. "Before I made that trip and did all that investigation, the idea was rather a flight of fancy.  The more people I met and the more I discovered about their lives and the satisfaction they derived from being there, being a part of helping build a Jewish society, well the more I became convinced I'd find far more personal and professional satisfaction there than I would anywhere else in the world."

Sarah remembered looking around at the faces around the table.  Her mother was literally in tears, her mascara dripping down her cheeks as she stared first at Sarah then at her husband.  Surprisingly, her father looked totally unperturbed. He had the look of a man who was discussing normal everyday issues, not some monumental life changing decision.  The only thing that gave his inner feelings away was the slight hint of a smile around the corners of his mouth and a sparkle in his eye.

She left Boston for Israel three weeks later.  Only her girls friends from school organized a small surprise Bon-Voyage party.  When she left for the airport her mother was no where to been seen.  Her father drove her. He tried to reassure her that eventually her mother would come around.  If it really worked out for her, and she really did settle down in Israel, eventually she'd find her mother on her doorstep.   Laughingly he concluded, "it was only a matter of time" and he took her hand in his right hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

"What about you Dad?" Sarah had  asked. "Why did you see to be so accepting of my decision from the first moment?"

"The truth?"

"Of course the truth!"

"Your decision didn't come as a total surprise.  You did speak to people I myself had referred you to?"

"Oh." a groan escaped her. "You mean they reported back to you everything we discussed?"

"I wouldn't go  so far as to say 'everything' but the drift of your questions and a sense of your intentions."

"And you agreed?  You support my decision?"

"Sweetheart," her father started, but stopped to apparently collected his thoughts, or maybe she thought, to choose his words wisely. "If someone had told me two or three years ago that you would leave us to settle in Israel, I ..."

"You probably would have made my life a living hell!" Sarah had blurted out, not waiting for her father to finish his thought.

"Well I hope not that bad, but ... well I suppose that is one way of describing it, I mean from your perspective."

"And now?"

"Now? I still disagree with the very idea of giving up everything you have here in Boston, America.  Your family.  My connections in the business. But if that is what you have decided, especially after serious study and evaluation, I'd be a fool and disloyal to you not to support your decision."

The tears welled in her eyes as she remembered  her fathers warmth and sincerity.  For the rest of her life she would always think of that conversation whenever she heard  the word 'loyalty' mentioned.

"Thanks Dad." Sarah had responded, not trusting herself to say more for fear she'd lose it.

"just remember that if for any reason you want to come back, even temporarily, you should never hesitate.  There is no shame in changing you mind or just 'regrouping' while you acquire experience or even save some capital."

The serious discussion was over.  The rest of the way to Logan they talked about other things, and people she should say hello to for her father.  Just at the last minute when they hugged one last time before she went past the passport control and her father fiercely whispered in her ear that he loved her, it was only then that she lost it.  With sobs of affection and tearful smiles they parted.

Three Dimensional

When they arrived at Kiryat HaYovel, the streets seemed dull and drab, as if the street lights themselves were somehow dilapidated and incapable of dispelling the darkness.  It took Yigal two passes of the building before he realized that was their destination.  There wasn't any lighted sign or even a bare light bulb in the entrance corridor.  At least the stair case lights worked when they pressed the button.  Otherwise he would have gone back to the jeep to fetch his flash light. 

Two floors down Sarah knocked on the door of an apartment that Yigal couldn't help but laugh when he saw it.  The frame, door and even the handle had been painted in bright yellows, reds and greens in some sort of paisley pattern.

"Who lives here, a hippie?"

Sarah didn't get a chance to answer as the door opened.  The creature that stood there stopped him cold.  He wasn't certain if it was a male or a female.  What was certain was, with the exception of the face every exposed part of the person's body was  covered in intricate colored tattoos. To add to the total bizarreness, every piece of flesh that wasn't flat, had some kind of piercing.  Eyebrows, ears, lips, nose.  Later he realized the was a piercing through the fellows tongue.  Yigal hesitated when he saw  an outstretched hand.  'What the heck!  When in Africa ..." and he responded in kind.

It turned out that YYY was a student of Sarah's.  She evidently taught at one of the colleges that had sprouted up in Israeli cities in the past few years.  YYY was a  student of computer graphics  at the Bazel School of Art who supplemented his knowledge with Sarah's course in digital photography.

"So what do you have for us?" Sarah asked.

"Remember I told you about that software that permits viewers on the Internet to navigate in three-dimensional space?  To do that you need 360 degree photographs.  You don't have exactly 360, but with software I managed to fudge it, giving you 270 degrees.  Come in her and see what I'm talking about.

They had remained standing in what was supposedly a living room.  Yigal was more than relieved that he didn't have to sit down here.  The next room, what appeared to be the only bedroom in this bachelor apartment was in stark contrast to the filth and disarray of the rest of the house.  Upon entering the second room Yigal could see floor to ceiling shelves against every wall, including the only wall with a window.  Neatly stacked on some shelves were endless books on various computer subjects with stacks of glossy magazines as book ends.  On other shelves was a dizzying array of computers and wires running in every direction through well put together plastic conduits.  On a large table that took up the entire space in the  center of the room was a large wood table surrounded by ergonomic office chairs.

"Sit down here, if you don't mind?" offered YYY pointing to two of the  chairs opposite the largest LCD screen Yigal had ever seen.  Even in the sports bar he occasionally visited when in Tel Aiv they didn't have a screen that large!

"Here's a mouse." YYY said, handing over a small black ball with no visible cord connecting it to anything.

With the touch of the keyboard in front of him the screen suddenly came alive.  The sheer size of the screen, coupled with the brilliant three dimension representation of the scene made Yigal feel as if he had somehow been magically teleported to the edge of the cistern fifty kilometers away.  It was unbelievable realistic.

"Use the mouse!" YYY encouraged.

Yigal placed the black ball on the table, having discovered that one side was flat.  By gently moving it side to side, his perspective changed.  It was as if they had walked back and forth along the side of the  cistern.

"This in absolutely unbelievable!" he exclaimed.

"Try moving it forward." YYY coached.

Yighal did as he was bid.  The perspective moved forward  and slightly down, as if they were hanging in the air above the artifacts and debris below.

"Here you try it." Yigal offered  to Sarah.

Far less hesitant Sarah moved the mouse quickly in various  directions creating the effect of drawing closer to the bottom of the cistern, and even slowly moving around one particular pile of rocks that had a large apparently unbroken urn sticking out covered in layers of dust.

"This is absolutely amazing!" Yigal said out loud, an attempt at placating his host and to make up for his initial shirking from contact with his host. "How do you do this?"

The explanation he received was totally incomprehensible to him, but he could see Sarah listening with rapt attention.

"So what do you say?" YY asked the  two of them. "Can I go public with this site?"

"What do you mean public?" Yigal questioned.

"You know, like make it available on the web.  Kind of like  an example of what three dimensional representation using VRML can really be!"

Yigal sat quietly.  He felt like he had been ambushed but he  wasn't certain.  Did Sarah know this  was going to happen when she brought him here?

"Listen, I can't ..."

YYY was quick to interrupt.

"Listen dude.  I'm not going to argue or anything.  Sarah told me there might be problems with permissions.  I just thought it might be great to share  something this hot with the rest of the  world."  Yigal didn't respond.

"Well at least I can use the site in-house, like off-line, as a term project for one of my courses?"

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"Yigal," Sarah turned  to him.  It was the first time she participated in the discussion between the two men. "What if YYY made this public without identifying where it was.  Some sort of anonymous archeology discovery somewhere in Israel?"

Yigal didn't want to say yes but ... for some reason he had this inner need to find favour in Sarah's eyes.

"Okay.  But there is one condition."

"Yes!" YY shouted, raising one of his multi coloured tattooed arms into the  arm with a clenched fist! "What is the condition?"

"I was never here and we never had this conversation. Can we all agree to that?"

Both YYY and Sarah smiled as they nodded their heads in agreement.

"I can always  say that I shared the photos with YYY in order to get his help in recreating the site, all without your knowledge.  That way if anything happens you're not directly responsible."

"Listen you two.  I'll always remain 'responsible'.  Its just a question of how culpabale I'll be." With that even he had to smile at the subterfuge the three had just cooked up."

"Did the two of you rehearse this before I came here?" he asked, partly in jest but with an underlying tone of disbelief, no mater how  they answered.

"Good luck YYY!" Yigal said as he rose from the chair.  This time he offered his hand first, and firmly and warmly shook the tattooed  fist that was proffered him.

"We got to get going.  I have to get up early."

"Me too, don't forget!."

Desert At Night

Avi loved the quiet of the desert.  Normally he spent the shift of guard duty sitting in the entrance to the kibbutz.  There he could get a good five or six hours of studying done on an average shift.  Not bad considering that he was paid for the privilege This evening was different.  For some reason someone decided that this hole in the ground required two men to protect it.  Some kind of archaeological discovery, or so they were told at the beginning of the shift.

In the light of a full moon the desert had a kind of magic appearance. The silver light reflected from everything.  A kind of half light that reflected off everything, changing the mundane into something mystical. Literally a work of art.  Tonight, however, there wasn't a moon. The darkness was blanketed everything.  Although one could make out the rough outline of mounds of dirt and even vaguely the tire tracks their vehicle made through the layers of collected dust the day winds blew everywhere, it was a darkness you wouldn't want to explore in. Depth perception was severely limited and you wouldn't one able to tell the difference between a ditch or a hundred meter deep galley

What was common to both the moonless and moon lit desert was the silence.  Without the sun the reptilian inhabitants, the snakes, scorpions and others, borrowed into their lairs, waiting for the morning sun to warm them up and restore them to active life.  What people didn't realize that, once the sun went down, there was very little to gold the sun's heat.  After just a few hours the desert was a cold, dark silent place.  

They told him he couldn't put a lamp on.  No studying tonight.  What he would be doing in another few minutes was catch a couple of hours of sleep.  His partner was quietly stretched out in the back of their pickup.  Thankfully he didn't snore, but in the dessert silence, even his rhythmic deep breathing sounded loud to Avi's ears. Somewhere far away in the background Avi suddenly heard a vehicle.  Probably some military patrol on its mindless back and forth trip along the local highway.

As Avi strained to listen to the engine sounds, and to try to determine from which direction they were travelling, he realized that he heard another sound in the silence. A soft rustling sound muffled by the ground between him and the dry river bed just a few hundred meters away. The longer he listened, the more convinced he was that his imagination was not deceiving him.  There was something moving there. Slowly Avi moved to the cargo bay of the pickup where Gad was sound asleep.

'Wake up!' he urgently whispered into his partner's ear.  When Gad started stirring, Avi placed his hand over Gad's mouth to stifle any sounds he might make.

'What's happening?" Gad urgently asked in a hoarse whisper when Avi finally removed his hand from Gad's mouth. After explaining in a few whispered phrases what Avi suspected was happening, the two silently crawled away from their truck, weapons in hand, to a pre-prepared pile of rocks and earth where if attacked they would be better protected from bullets or shrapnel.  more importantly, their secure position was a good fifty meters away from the truck, but had a good view of all the approaches to the hole in the ground they were guarding. If anything heavy was fired at the truck, it wouldn't affect them, but if anyone tried approaching the archaeological find, they'd be in a perfect place to give them a warm welcome.

Having arrived, they snuggled into the dust and pebbled floor. Now all they had to do was wait.

Trip to Shevut Ami

The central bus station was a zoo. Sarah rarely traveled outside the city, and when she did, she usually caught a ride with friends to make Shabbat at some mutual destination. There were near fist-fights in the crowded line through the security check. Once at the actual check point, everyone stood back to let the single individual go through the metal detector, and then rushed afterward to place their bag on the conveyor belt through the x-ray machine.

Inside the station wasn't that much better.  Soldiers were everywhere.  Their huge knapsacks, probably bulging with weeks of laundry, nestled high on their backs, automatic rifles slung on straps over their shoulders.  There was every shape, size and color of people busily rushing to and fro. What caught Sarah's eye in particular were the black Ethiopian Jewess.  Many had very refined features, almost European in look, contrasted with the black skin that made they seem so exotic.  No, Sarah decided after a moment it was their eyes.  The brightness of their eyes caught one's attention. All the rest was external.

A group of young Scandinavian women also carrying their 'home' on their back walked past her.  An elderly Shepardic couple stopped to ask her where the elevator could be found.  Uncertain of how to pronounce that word correctly, despite the fact that this very second she had heard the old woman ask her, she simply pointed with a smile and muttered 'sham' (There!) to emphasize her point.  Both the woman and the man thanked her, more a blessing than a courtesy before they laboriously continued on their way.

Getting on the bus was another test of her humanity.  The best way to survive was to pretend that she was gate crashing at a Boston Bears football game, only without the use of elbows.

[Name of Boston football team]

The ride to Shevut Ami was exhausting.  Being the polite American girl she was, Sarah ended up standing the entire trip, letting some poor girl six months pregnant sit.  She hadn't realized how many communities there were in Gush Etzion until the bus seemed to enter every single one making a big circle inside each one to permit the various passengers with all their Friday shopping and weekend luggage unpack the cargo bay underneath the bus. The entire trip she barely got to see anything through the heavily scratched windows.  The windows were triple paned glass, the double inner panes thick bullet proof glass.  The outer was apparently some kind of plastic that weathered badly and had turned a kind of opaque fog, without the moisture.  She could see buildings and major land features, but it was difficult to enjoy the view.

When the bus started  down the steep incline toward Shevut Ami, there was only three people left on what had been a standing-room only packed bus when they had left Jerusalem.  She couldn't wait to get off and sit down on some non-moving stone or bench and breath fresh and not recycled air. To her surprise, Shifra was waiting for her at the bus stop at the entrance to Shevut Ami.

The older woman took the bags from Sarah's hands as Sarah pulled her own knapsack out from the cargo bay.

"It's so good to see you." The two 'air-kissed' in that quasi-affectionate style most Israeli women seemed to expect.  Somehow Shifra's tone of voice and warmth seemed more real than the stylized kiss.

"I'm glad to get off that bus!  My head is spinning!"

"Do you want to sit down for a minute.  I often do when I return from Jerusalem.  The endless turns and dips are almost as bad as a roller coaster."

"I'm fine!"  Sarah lied, not wanting to hold her hostess up unnecessarily.

"Here lets walk through the plots rather than down the road." Said Shifra as she led the way down a path between the various houses.

"How are things going at the dig?"

"We're just about finished.  This  coming week we'll have extracted the last of the debris and only the large stones will remain.  I understand they are bringing some sort of Army tractor with a crane to lift them out.  Depending upon what they find underneath them, if anything, we'll be finished either the same day or at most another week."

"It must be exciting to be involved in discovering objects that have remained hidden for such a long time."

Sarah was surprised to see they were already arriving at the Ben Ari's home, but from the other side.  The side away from the road.

"Yes, but truthfully, it was the discovery of that man wrapped in his prayer shawl and wearing these ancient tefillin that doesn't leave me.  We're not supposed to tell anyone but I guess I can trust you of all people."

The two women looked at each other and both broke out in a stifled giggle.

"I should hope so!" teased Shifra.

"Well they are pretty certain that the man they found scratched a message in the plaster of the wall before he died."

"That should be something.  Do they think they'll be able to decipher it?" Shifra asked as she opened the side door and ushered Sarah into the house.

"How's Yigal?" Shifra asked as she walked away from Sarah into the kitchen.  Sarah looked up to see her back.  She sensed that perhaps  Shifra didn't want to look at her when she asked or when Sarah answered. 

"He certainly puts in a lot of hours.  Most of the time I catch a ride down to the  site with him in the morning.  I sleep the entire trip.  Later during the day I catch an hour after lunch, a little siesta.  Not your son.  He is so busy keeping everybody else occupied and making certain everything is done 'by-the-book' as he calls it.  Its not a surprise that he literally sleeps the Shabbat from end-to-end." Sensing that maybe she said too much and perhaps said something that would cause Shifra to be disappointed in her son she added," well at least I don't hear him, but maybe he does sneak out from time to time.  I'm pretty beat myself." Shifra had put an electric kettle on and was preparing a couple of cups for a hot drink when Sarah plopped down on one of the kitchen chairs as if to emphasize her exhaustion.

"Are you finished cooking already?" She asked, looking  around and seeing a clean organized kitchen, the only hint of cooking and baking were the delicious aromas hanging in the air.

"Its not hard when you start Wednesday night!" Shifra laughed. "Tea? Coffee?"

"I think I'd better take the coffee, maybe it will help me from falling asleep."

"You've enough time to take a two hour nap if you go up and shower now.  I can't promise you'll have hot water if you try showering after your nap?

Sarah excused herself and carried her bags up to the second floor.  She knew which room to go to.  Yigal's room, with all his books piled in disarray on the shelves against one wall.  Above his headroom the entire wall was covered with photographs of Yigal and friends or Yigal and family hiking, swimming, climbing in short, exploring every facet of the Land of Israel. It was with these thoughts she laid down after a quick shower.  Yigal and the Land of Israel.

A short polite knock woke her up for candle lighting.  The men had already gone to the synagogue for evening prayers. Just like last time, Shifra sat out on her patio, the one sheltered by the leafy branches of two palm tress on either side of the paved floor.  The view out over the village toward the setting sun was breath taking.

"Its magnificent!" Sarah said as she said quietly beside Shifra. 

"Shifra didn't answer immediately as she was looking into a sidur (prayer book)."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see."

After a minute Shifra raised her head.

"No harm done.  The sunset is particularly moving.  It is a time of winding down.  I often think, as foolish as it sounds, it is as if the sun is retiring just as  we do at the end of a long day.  The birds chirp incessantly twice a day.  In the first hour of light and in the last hour before the light of day disappears.  Then quiet and peace cover the land."

Sarah didn't say anything.  She was thinking, 'If only!'  She had never been around weapons before.  Nobody she knew even hunted, although it is quiet possible some of her friends parents owned hand guns for personal protection. Now she worked day-in day-out in the middle of a battle ground.  The army had placed concrete barriers to protect the dig and the trailers they were using as work areas and offices, but astonishingly, they did not go out and stop the Arabs  who spent the better part of each day trying to kill them. It was totally absurd.  Something directly out of Kafka.

"A candy for your thoughts?" Shifra jokingly offered her.

"You looked  so serious and pensive.  It didn't look as if you were thinking about the sun's  disappearance?"

"I guess I'm a little naive about things, I mean the Arabs shooting at us all day long and all the army does is put up concrete barriers.  I mean one crazy guy took pot shots at commuters and half the police in the United States left no rock unturned until they found and arrested him."

"Its  difficult.  There isn't much I can say to help you make sense of it.  The best way to understand it is  to realize it is the opposite of common sense.  It is a small group of idealists cut off from the reality of day-to-day life that think if they will something, it will happen.  It doesn't work that way, but as long as they don't have to face the reality, they keep on making the  same ill fated mistake."

Her words were cut off as David and a young man Sarah had never met face-to-face entered the patio from the dining room.

"Shabbat Shalom!"

"Wow!" was all the young man said as he looked directly at Sarah with not a little bit of admiration on his face. Sarah had to look away from embarrassment.

"Chagai. Is that a way to welcome our guest?" Shifra asked, part in all seriousness and partly in motherly amazement at the behaviour of her younger son.

"I'm sorry.  It's just ..."

"Its just what? Chagai?" Shifra would give him no avenue of retreat.

"Well I heard that Sarah was beautiful but I had no idea how beautiful!"

At that even Shifra had to chuckle.

"Good save son!  Now lets  go back to the kitchen before you put your foot in your mouth again, and this time you might not be able to get it out!" David laughingly dragged Chagai by the arm back into the house.

"He's in the armoured corp isn't he?"

"Yes. I apologize if he embarrassed you.  I'm astounded he was so ..."

"So forward?"

"Well, yes.  It isn't like him."

"It sounds like someone filled his head with nonsense and he bought into it."

"What, that you are a very remarkable, intelligent and attractive young woman?"

Sarah's eyes open wide at hearing such a  strong compliment spoken so openly and directly.

"I'm not used to hearing such things said about me." she said in a quiet voice, as if lowering the volume of the  conversation  might be more modest and appropriate than brazen boastfulness.

"Just because you are too modest to hear such things, doesn't mean they aren't true."  With that Shifra offered her hand and and-in-hand the two women walked back into the house.  

Later as she laid in bed waiting for sleep she thought of how it seemed so natural to show affection, to hold Shifra's hand or have her shoulders massaged as Shifra walked by.  Her mother never touched her. As she thought about it, at her graduation her mother didn't even hug or kiss her.  Instead she shook her hand.  Shook her hand as if she  was so sort of stranger or something.

Her poor mother, was the last thing she consciously thought about.  A poor woman who wasn't even capable of expressing affection to her own daughter.  Sarah felt sorry for her. Sarh felt so lucky to have met a mother like Shifra who could demonstrate to her that there was another way.  A human, warm way to express how you felt about someone you liked.  She liked Shifra she thought, and with that she fell asleep.

The next day was a long quiet lazy day.  Yigal's brother was a funny young guy.  Sarah started to think he was actually hitting up on her, but as the day drew on she realized that was just his way.  It made her wonder what Yigal was like before ... before he forgot how to be carefree.  That was a thought.  She wondered if Yigal had once known how to express his feelings for others in the same natural open way his mother did. That definitely was something to think about.

"Why?" Dummy.  What are you thinking of?  Yigal is off on a direction different from hers.  He was all wrapped up in his anguish and self imposed pain. What did she want to get serious about such a problematical person for? Another source of a smile.  It's a  shame Chagai is only twenty two.  She could really go for a couple like Shifra and David as in-laws.

That night after Shabbat on the bus back to Jerusalem she succeeded in getting a seat right in front near the driver.  One of the perks of getting on at the first stop.  This time, although it was night, she marveled at the different communities. Each with its  different 'flavour'.  Some more ostentatious, others simpler and XXXX.  What they all seemed to have in common was their family orientation.  Homes with yards.  Every little neighbourhood seemed to have a pocket park with swings and slides.  It seemed that every community had endless speed bumps to keep the traffic at a safe speed for the children and mothers  who must use these streets during daylight hours.

The other thing that amazed her were the 'trampistim'.  She knew young people travelled every where by hitch hiking, but to see dozens of youngsters who all seemed like they were in junior high standing on the side of the road in the dark of night was something else.  That would have been amazing anywhere, but this was the so-called "territories" - Indian Country where if you asked  anyone in the communities on the coastal plain, here was "dangerous".  That the vast majority of Israeli victims of terror died of terror attacks on buses in the major cities or in restaurants or hotels was another thing entirely.  Don't confuse people's irrational fears with the facts.  None-the-less it was a sight she wouldn't soon forget.