Part 11 (1/2)

”No, probably because they left early on, before Fearless Leader's great disappearance. Do you know about that?”

”Zeke's month in the country?” I said.

He laughed. ”Yeah, just that. When Ari's mother left, it hit everyone hard. She was one of the inner circle, after all, privy to the old boy's secrets and all that.”

Ari looked up from his blackened catfish. ”She was?”

”You didn't know?” I said.

”She never talks about those years, not to me anyway.” Ari paused for a swallow of water. ”Except she did apologize to me once, for staying so long and subjecting me to the place. I told her she needn't apologize. I understood how much it meant to her. She couldn't have foreseen how it would all turn out.”

Ari's mother began to sound like someone I should know.

”Makes sense,” Itzak said. ”My folks call their stint on the kibbutz their romance with Israel, the whole idea of Israel.” He looked my way. ”A lot of American Jews go through that.”

”I take it you don't share the feeling,” I said.

”No.” Itzak considered for a moment. ”I'm a typical Re-form guy, go to temple on the big holidays and when I feel I need to remember what I am.”

”I have Catholic relatives who do the same with church,” I said.

He grinned at me. ”Yeah, I bet.”

”You belong to a congregation?” Ari said to him. ”I'm surprised. I can't stand the thought of going to temple after all of Reb Ezekiel's claptrap.”

”It was claptrap, yeah. Not Judaism, Ari, but bulls.h.i.+t. That's why I can't reject the ceremonies and the observances wholesale. He was a raving lunatic, and what he taught us had nothing to do with the Torah.”

”Well, there you have a point. Maybe two.”

”What I'm wondering,” I said, ”is why you both hate Reb Zeke so much. Still, I mean, after all these years. Did he beat you or something?”

”No way!” Itzak said. ”Our mothers would never have put up with that.”

”I don't know if I'd say I hate him,” Ari said. ”But he disrupted my parents' lives and mine.” He nodded at Itzak. ”It was even worse for you.”

”'Fraid so,” Itzak said. ”I was just old enough to be aware we were moving when my folks sold up everything and moved to Israel. When we came back, they were broke and depressed. It took them a couple of years to get back on their feet. That's probably what I can't forgive the rebbe for-the disruption, like Ari called it.”

I nodded. I could understand that.

”It wasn't so bad, really, when we were all believers,” Itzak continued. ”I liked learning to shoot, and Ari here was incredible at it. A natural sure shot, I think the term is.”

”Oh, yeah,” I said. ”I've seen him in action.”

I felt cold, remembering. Ari raised an eyebrow in my direction. I managed to smile, but I laid down my fork.

”Too spicy for you?” Itzak said with a nod at my plate.

”Oh, no,” I said. ”I'm just not very hungry. But go on, this is fascinating, hearing about your lives.”

”The work wasn't bad, either, for the children,” Ari said. ”Tzaki and I took care of the goats.”

”Let me guess,” I said. ”Tzaki's the nickname for Itzak.”

”Right,” Ari said. ”I'm regressing, I suppose. But they're surprisingly intelligent, goats. I got to be rather fond of them.”

”So I've heard,” I said. ”It's funny, but I've never thought of you as a farm boy before.”

”Only for those first few years.” Ari suddenly smiled. ”Tzaki, do you know what I remember as the best part of the day?”

”Let me guess,” Itzak said. ”Blowing away targets with six different kinds of rifle?”

”No, not that! The showers at the end of the day.” Ari turned to me. ”After school, you'd do your ch.o.r.es and have your weapons practice and all that, and it was hot. It was a good kind of heat, Nola, a dry heat, but still, you'd be sweaty and covered with dust, a layer of mud, really.”

”Right!” Itzak broke in. ”And then you had a shower, cool water just pouring down.”

For a few minutes they ate in silence, as if in tribute to the glory of being clean at the end of a hard day. I found myself remembering how Kathleen and I used to whine about having to clear the table and load the dishwasher after my mother and Maureen had cooked the dinner. Little did we know how good we had it!

”But anyway,” I said, ”something must have left scars.”

”It was what happened after,” Itzak said, ”once we returned to normal life, or that's how I think of it, anyway, normal American life in my case, normal Israeli life in Ari's. The other kids thought we were weird, and you know how kids treat someone they think is weird. We learned real fast to keep our mouths shut about where we'd been.”

”Not fast enough in my case,” Ari said. ”I ended up expelled from the first school my father put me in.”

”For what?” I said.

”Fighting.”

”So, what else would it be for Ari?” Itzak said. ”I was too much of a coward to hit first. I only hit in self-defense, and so the teachers cut me some slack.”

The waiters returned and began to clear. Itzak ordered dessert for all of us, including a bourbon-laced pudding that looked as if it contained two days' worth of calories. The men dug in. I had a bite of each kind and left the rest to them.

”So, anyway,” Itzak said after some minutes. ”It took me a long time to come to terms with my charming childhood years.”

”I can see why,” I said.

”And coming to terms with the formalities of Judaism was part of that.” Itzak glanced at Ari. ”I take it you never have.”

Ari shrugged and looked sour.

”But, you see,” Itzak waved a fork at him, ”you don't have my problem, because you're Israeli. You can be as secular as all h.e.l.l, and it doesn't matter. I'm an American first and a Jew second, and sometimes the Jewish part threatens to fade away. Temple's important to me.”

Ari said nothing, but he nodded, thinking it over.

”You're a hard-core sabra,” Itzak went on. ”Or more than that, even. You were raised to die for Israel.”

”True,” Ari said. ”And someday I will, I suppose.”