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After the Flood

Oz Guterman

Copyright © 2024 Oz Guterman

All rights reserved; no parts of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping,
or by any information retrieval system, without
the permission, in writing, of the author.

Translation from Hebrew: Jerry Hyman

Editing: Asaf Schurr and Lilach Shahar

Contact: ozgute13@gmail.com

Contents

OHR

Chapter 1: Into the Inferno

Chapter 2: FIRE!

Chapter 3: HOMEWARD

Chapter 4: ONE BODY

Chapter 5 : THE GREEN MOUNTAIN ALL YEAR LONG – STILL DREAMING AND QUESTIONING

RACHELI

Chapter 6: …AND THE ANIMAL

Chapter 7: OF MICE AND MEN

Chapter 8: BATTLE OF THE TRACKERS

Chapter 9: WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?

Chapter 10: THE GREEN MOUNTAIN ALL YEAR ROUND – BREATHE IN THE WINDS AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME

OHR

Chapter 11: NAZIR

Chapter 12: RA’ASH – NOISE

Chapter 13: WATER – MA’YIM

Chapter 14: HANNAH

Chapter 15: TO SHINE FOR A MOMENT

RACHELI

Chapter 16: RED SKY

Chapter 17: MOUNTAIN STREAM – NAHAL MA’APILIM

Chapter 18: COALS

Chapter 19: HOPE

Chapter 20: CITY OF GOD

Chapter 21: GILA

ZOHAR

Chapter 22: SUNRISE

Acknowledgements

To Gila,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity
to write your book.

There won’t be a day when I do not miss you.

OHR

Chapter 1

Into the Inferno

Beads of sweat slide down my temples, pure and hot, telling me it’s all about to begin. In a moment I will smell the searing burn. It’s not the first time, but the feeling doesn’t lessen; it gets more vivid and clearer, as if the body anticipates the smashing to the ground, the smoke, the screams, and the waiting for it all to end…

“Ohr, what’s up with you?!” David snarls, his sullen face alongside mine. Again, I hadn’t kept eye contact. Ten meters away, Ido’s powerful, curled fingers give the coded signal that means ‘advance’ in irregular, staggered movements. I look up at the hill beside us. Where only stones and bushes were visible before, hearts are now pounding, exhilarated with the weight of their heavy equipment, waiting to give us cover from behind. I cannot see anyone on the hill, of course, but I know they are there. A cautious look ahead reveals several enemy guards. Their faces are calm, their bodies relaxed, they pay no special heed to the silent turmoil buzzing around them. They speak casually amongst themselves, two hundred meters away from us, behind fences – most of which are still intact. I see David behind the rock next to me and Liron lying behind a sticky, strong-smelling Inula bush. They too drip with sweat, their eyes focused and alert. Ido is a bit farther back, peering out from the branches of the Mastic tree, continuing to signal to the unseen fighters.

Something about Ido’s pragmatism instills me with confidence. He always knows what’s the right thing to do, even when all seems lost. I can see by his focused gaze and furrowed brow that he knows where each one of us is – even those hidden from sight.

I see Liron advance from the bush to the rock. Nadav is already there. Both are kneeling and ready for action. My turn. You have to be very careful – one wrong move, and the whole unit will be exposed. Immobility is best, as we are always aware – the eye is sensitive to movement. but now we need to move forward. I make three cautious movements without a sound. At the edge of my field of vision I see others also crossing the forest some seventy meters from the target destination. Ido signals for them to stop. Two more moves and I’m just sixty meters away, behind a broad rock with fifteen more Zaharonim. When I hold my breath, I can hear movement.

“What’s up with them!?” I whisper to Jaref. “They’ll hear them!”

“It’s the adrenaline,” he replies in a whisper, without looking at me. “Focus on the mission!” Jaref is right. What for me a loud noise was not heard at all by the guards above us. As always, they are too noisy to hear. Their laughter is so loud it reaches us.

I run my hand along the Kalashnikov; I can feel my breath rising and glance back at Ido. He signals for Jaref and Benny to climb up on the rock. They’re sharpshooters; Ido chose the best shots with the best weapons. Ido raises both hands and gestures “60 seconds,” making sure we all see. We are about thirty meters from the guards near the fence and I can hear every word they say.

They’re telling dirty jokes and laughing out loud, oblivious to what’s happening around them. I can see there are about forty of them. Ido signals “30 seconds.” The snipers crawl over the rocks, on the mounds of dirt and through the tall bushes in the gorge nearby with two diverging paths. Everything is moving – and they don’t see us.

Ten, nine... Ido’s fingers are seen clearly now. There is no reason to stay hidden anymore. Eight, seven... his fingers count down silently. Six, five, four... I get into a squatting position. The whole arena is rising – a pack of lionesses has completed its stealthy approach and is about to pounce on the prey. Three, two... our movement on the field is already observable. I feel my pulse racing, bursting out of my chest. One!

I leap to my feet as a barrage of gunfire erupts around me. I aim and start shooting. A deafening roar and the enemy guards start dropping, most of them not even having had time to lift their heads. A cloud of dust from the firing looms up from the freshly killed bodies.

Ido shouts, “Let’s go! Charge!” and his bulky body closes the gap between us on a fast run; he’s almost airborne, and already ahead of me.

The sight of the big man passing us urges everyone forward.

I run between the bushes and rocks. A herd of fighters rushes the fence, firing as they go. Meanwhile, shots start coming at us from the other side after the initial shock. A torrent of bullets sprays the ground around us. The shots are coming from the rear positions on the Royal Hill, from an impenetrable area on the upper bastions. Whoever controls them controls the camouflaged emergency storage depot with all its equipment, munitions and weaponry. Our rear position fires furiously at the bastions, but they are at a great disadvantage in terms of fire power and position; seen from above they are easy targets. They go silent one by one, allowing us very little time, and that is their sole objective: to draw fire away from us as long as they can survive enemy fire. They lessen the firing raining down on us, but even so it’s heavy. We run in a cloud of dust splattering up from bullets hitting the ground.

When you are in the thick of the battle, you cannot think; you are numb. I have no fear, no hesitation. My body functions as I have been trained, by instinct. I see men falling beside me; I hear their screams, but I continue charging into the inferno.

The enemy shoots in all directions because they have trouble seeing where we are. We deliberately planned the attack at an hour when the sun is behind us, setting in the west. If they were able to see us clearly, none of us would have made it to the wall. Both the sun and the strategic positioning have one purpose: to buy us time.

We reach the fence covered in sweat and dust and start climbing. Ido had already reached the edge of the fence when I see his blood splatter. It doesn’t even occur to me to try to help him. I go on with the mission and am using the cutters to break through the fence. Two shells hit the ground next to me, but I continue. Within a few seconds the hole in the fence is big enough, and those who haven’t fallen in battle pour though it and race to the wall for shelter.

Then the explosions start. I can’t tell if they’re from grenades or mortars. I only know I have to race for the wall. An explosion next to me throws me forward and I crash to the ground and all the commotion vanishes. When I manage to open my eyes, I can see only smoke and comrades scattered around me. One of them holds his amputated leg and screams, but no sound comes out of his throat. Everything is still and in slow motion. The fear and stress are also gone and I look around apathetically. I see the explosions but I hear nothing. There are bodies strewn around, smoke and people running – everything is moving sluggishly and without sound.

Only when I start to feel my pulse surging do I realize that I cannot hear anything. My ears are filled with a shrill beeping sound and there is someone pulling at my leg. It’s David, and he’s shouting something. I focus on his lips intently. I realize he is shouting “heavy machine gun” when I see the hole in his stomach. I look in his eyes. We both know what will happen now, but David smiles and his smile makes it clear to me what I have to do. I jump up from the ground and run to the wall, which is already close by. The world around me is exploding from all directions. Now it is clear that this is a heavy grenade launcher. The sound of the explosions is becoming stronger – my hearing starts to come back. Someone next to me is screaming, “Where are they? Where are they!?” My hearing and awareness slowly return to me. I see them beside me, wounded and stunned, clinging to the wall with all their might. Ilan is pale and swaying from side to side. I don’t know if he is wounded or in shock. “It’s over,” someone mumbles.

“They were supposed to be here already. They’re not coming!” Beyond the parallel wall, so close to us, there are more Zaharonim. They also seem bewildered. I estimate that of the six hundred of us, maybe three hundred are left. In between my stunned looks and the explosions and sounds of gunfire, the silence rises again, then it turns into a scream. I’m not sure what I’m doing or even who the man is who is shouting out of my throat…

“Guys, get up now! You hear me? Now!”

The men fall silent. More and more eyes are staring at me. “Listen!” shouts someone on the other side of the wall. “This is what we came here for!” I yell. “We knew we were going to die. We knew and we came!” For a moment I hesitate. “We have a job to do,” I say, “and we’re going to finish it. We have to give Khaled’s Zaharonim a chance – and we are their only hope! You, by the wall on the right and us on the left – all of you, lie down and shoot now. Clear?!”

They look at me and nod in fear. I realize that this is the moment and I shout as loud as I can, “All fire!” and I jump from the cover of the wall, roll over and start shooting. Others follow my lead. Some of them fall as soon as they stand, others manage to lie down again and aim their weapons. Stone splatters fly all around us and the dust stings our eyes, but we continue firing. During the shooting, the silence creeps in. Suddenly, only the sound of our gunshots and other gunshots in the distance are heard. The explosions cease. We look up at the dying rays of the sun falling on the high ramparts, painting the fortified bastions the bright red of a blood-filled sunset.

Slowly, and without any command or instruction, we all stop shooting. Still covered in a cloud of dust and sulfur, we see the red cloth rising above the crimson concrete. I don’t feel joy or relief, just drained, I drop the Kalashnikov next to me and lay my head down on the white sand.

Only then can I feel my heart beating uselessly on the ground beneath me. Only then can I taste the thick saliva mixed with gunpowder. I inhale the dust of the ground and the smoke and suddenly I can feel the dryness in my gullet and sense my heavy breathing. I close my eyes. The whole world becomes a mass of thick, dense air that slowly invades my throat.

Gunshots are still heard from above. Individual bursts of fire that will be extinguished in another moment. I listen with my eyes closed in my parched world. The sounds around me stir me – the moans of pain of the wounded, the questioning voices of the remaining warriors. We were so many, Ido’s men, and now Ido’s body hangs dead on the fence and the rest of us lie between the fence and the wall, the youngsters and the older ones, scattered in a field of red flowers. We knew we were the bait, yet we went. We knew that most of us would not come out of it alive. Our job was simply to draw fire and attention so that Khaled’s Zaharonim could sneak up from the other direction...We knew this was our only chance to reach the strongholds.

Chapter 2

FIRE!

Some of the Zaharonim pass among the bodies. Triage of the wounded has begun, and I, instead of helping, still lie face down on the ground, breathing in the dirt. I know what follows: Anyone who has lost an arm or a leg or other body part is designated ‘unsalvageable.’ They will not survive the long journey back, the difficult and exhausting days of marching. We have almost no medical equipment, to say nothing of blood for transfusions. But the work of the wounded is not done; they play an important role for the way back. They have been left for “dispersal,” and will soon be joined by the wounded who are unable to advance at the required pace on the way back to the mountain. The gob of wet sand in my throat is joined by the touch of a hand on my shoulder, which becomes a distant voice that turns into Alex’s calming tones, which in turn awakens me from my dream of a field of white grain.

“Ohr,” he says, shaking me, to check if I’m still alive.

I turn to him slowly.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

Alex does not ask questions. No time to waste in enemy territory.

“They signaled us to get up there in ten minutes. Come on, hurry.”

He hands me a bottle of water; I take a sip and rise. Very quickly I learn that my initial assessment was wrong: from Ido’s force there are about four hundred functioning Zaharonim remaining. I join those passing between the moderately and severely wounded. Most of the walking wounded are already alongside Idan and Maor, barely budging, and helping each other to walk. Each of them will go as far as their pain and bleeding will allow, and then lie down with a weapon and a little water to slow the advance of the Easterners – the Easterners. Everything is happening almost mechanically, without words. We all know the role we have in this play; no need for a director. The severely wounded have already been set apart, and those with lesser wounds have begun moving autonomously. Those who are whole walk among the critically wounded, and kneel by them. This is the way we conduct ourselves in every battle. The fourth one I come to is David. He is shaking uncontrollably. Blood pours out of the puncture wound in his stomach and seeps into the cracks in the soil. I hold his hand and we murmur together. He speaks slowly, his voice trembling: “All my desire... is to shine for a moment... My whole life will have meaning and value if I have helped rays of light to rise... and the sun to shine. For... great light is composed of thousands of sparks that ignite for a brief moment. May my life be a spark of this light...”

I suddenly realize that I am muttering these last words alone. David’s dead body lies inert beneath me; I look upon him and feel nothing, neither anger nor joy, no sadness and not even distaste. I know what I must do: remove from the corpse its remaining cartridges and weapons. Over time you understand the cost of warfare. I have known it since childhood.

We organize everything as quickly as possible, but it still takes us an hour to get up there; we had to gather equipment from our own dead as well as from the Easterners' dead – weapons, bullets, grenades and anything else of value. When there are no means of producing new weaponry, we waste nothing. While we were climbing up, two of the sixteen hidden doors were dug up and uncovered, and most of the arms and other gear were taken out. The emergency storage depot is huge, and without knowing the exact location of the doors and the entrance codes, it is impossible to access it all. Nevertheless, with a large enough workforce, such as the one the Easterners have at their disposal. There was danger that this could happen – and of course, if one of us were captured and gave away the location of the doors…all the material would have fallen into the hands of the Easterners. This was the reason that only two of Khaled’s Zaharonim knew the location of the two openings. Both had survived, as did almost all of Khaled’s force. Now they were managing the removal of the equipment. It is key: our ammunition supply is running out, and replenishing it is worth whatever the cost. Otherwise, we will not survive.

The other doors remain hidden. We do not try to get to them.

It is quite difficult to remove the equipment from the two storehouses we have opened, and load it onto the backs of 5,000 Zaharonim. Some of us are concealing any equipment we will not be able to carry within a kilometer or two of the military base, and covering it with camouflage. Later, we will sneak back here in small groups and salvage the hidden gear; getting all of it into our hands will take months. Still, we have managed to load up a lot of the equipment on the spot, carrying it away in large rucksacks. I am used to carrying heavy weights – it was a regular part of the training – but the burden being lain on me now is greater than anything I’ve ever known. The sack on top is full of guns and ammunition. Very heavy weights are felt immediately in the gut, not on the back, and the best solution is to just start moving, flowing with the column, like ants walking the dark path into the forest.

We move quickly, remembering that the Easterners are behind us. Well briefed, we know it won’t be long before they catch up with us. We have to hurry, but the weight slows us down. After a while we hear behind us the controlled explosions of naval artillery, followed by the first shots. It seems that the Easterners have advanced faster than we expected and they are already close behind us. The dispersed wounded we have left behind begin their last stand, to shine proudly for one final moment and then die in the dark, buying us more time, a bit more life, a few precious minutes. We move now even more quickly, in total silence. Faster! We must reach the spur, we must push on as fast as we can under the weight and the strain, but the voices behind get closer and closer. Dust fills our mouths; our thirst increases. Those at the head of the column carry the most important equipment, and we, who carry the less vital gear, walk behind – nearer to the rapidly advancing Easterners. We can estimate accurately where they are; we hear their voices getting closer to us, the prey. They have eliminated the obstacles on the way more easily than we thought. Their pace is faster than what we were used to with the Southerners. The speed with which we organized ourselves has meant nothing. I am determined to survive; I must move more quickly, but the heavy weight I carry slows me down and I fall further and further behind, towards the back in the column.

The first shots that spray around me urge me to speed up, but my legs refuse. Too heavy, too hard. The predator behind me moves easily, without heavy equipment, light and nimble. The individual shots become deadly rain on the parched soil. They are coming! I know it’s only a matter of time. Eventually one of the bullets will find the right address… But then, all at once the shots in my direction stop. The firing continues, but in a different direction, probably at the dispersed men who positioned themselves on the side of the road. I take advantage of the pause and move forward into a green field between the two spurs of the hill. Wind moves through the field, gently waving the grain, but even the wind is wary, as it competes with the noise of gunfire.

Our two flanks get closer to each other; in a few moments they will meet. Between the two is a small gorge, with a narrow stream running through the center. Alongside me are three Zaharonim, bent from the load on their backs. Between the wind and the shots from behind I can hear them breathing. Only then do I also notice my own breath thundering in the wind-swept field. Just a little farther until the joining of the two flanks. We pass a curvature in the ground. It will conceal us until we reach the junction of the flanks. I think about the weapons I am carrying. All our weapons won’t help against the approximately thirty thousand Easterners pursuing us. That was our estimate of the size of their main force when we set out on the mission. This, the most powerful force in the region, is breathing down our necks! The twist in the path hides us from sight for a while, and we realize we can make it. That is all that is going through the heads of everyone around me: to get to the meeting point, to the converging flanks. Three Zaharonim collapse behind me in silence. The rest keep moving. It is clear; it’s only a matter of time before they catch us. We must reach the two flanks ahead, just reach them and fall! There is growing commotion from behind. They are many of them; very many – and they are well armed…

We are nearing the stream when I hear the command that heralds the end of the chase: “Fire!” We all fall forward at once.

A barrage of gunfire roars above our heads. Sparks light up in the trees in front of us: wide fire from machine gun barrels, thin fire from rifles, explosions from mortar shells. Zaharonim emerge from among the trees to improve their positions and run past us, shooting from beyond the curvature in the ground. I shake the heavy load off my back and roll over, and after a few deep breaths I join the run back to the bend we tried so hard to cross just a moment ago. I lie down and crawl to the edge of the curvature, next to one of our machine guns' positions. From there I can observe the entire valley between the two spurs of the hill that come together behind us, backed by a row of hills beyond. In the valley I can see victory! Not soldiers celebrating nor joy at going home…the victory is this: thousands of Easterners taking heavy fire from every direction, without any cover. Our victory is a well-planned ambush. We knew they were close and would respond quickly – our scouts had brought the information in time. We had guessed that in the heat of the chase they would follow us into the valley, and that is what we wanted. The front line of Zaharonim stopped and spread out on the spurs, positioning themselves to fire. The rearguard hoped not to become part of the dispersion, and the dispersion itself created the impression that we were getting away with the spoils. We knew there was no chance of escaping with it without their catching up to us. The ambush was part of the plan – the only way to succeed in returning to the mountain with the equipment. I do not fire a single round. There is no need. Amidst the roar of battle, I stare at the enormous quantities of spilled blood, see the wounded and the dead; it is a scene the likes of which I have never witnessed in my life.

This is what victory looks like.

After ten minutes of firing, we go down and shoot at short range those who are still alive. We leave no wounded on the battlefield. We hurriedly gather the arms and other equipment from the bodies, every bullet, every grenade, every rifle and gun. First, of course, the machine guns and mortars. Other Zaharonim, who until this moment had secured the mountain, arrive to help us carry the spoils, yet it takes us another six hours to strip everything from the corpses of the Easterners, organize it together with the equipment we had taken from our emergency storage depot, and are ready to move forward. We leave behind a security squad for cover until we reach the end of the twist in the path. A long column of Zaharonim from our mountain, the healthy and the wounded, young and old, laden with heavy equipment, start on the long journey back to the mountain. No time for reflection; under the heavy weight we carry, progress in enemy territory will be slow…and dangerous.

Chapter 3

HOMEWARD

Three days walking; three days carrying heavy weight. We move in a quiet and disciplined column. Down from the mountain we always march in battle formation, even after a victory. Some, not carrying equipment, march in front to guard against attack. In case we are surprised, they will be able to act quickly. A vanguard force quietly takes up firing positions before any advance, the trackers march ahead and we maintain absolute silence. There is no hymn of victory, no words of backing and encouragement.

Off the mountain you are always ready for battle. We keep ample space between us, so that in the event of an attack – a mortar, grenade, or machine gun would not kill many of us. We are too far away from each other to whisper. When the column stops, we doze off for a few minutes until the Zaharonim without the equipment wake us, and we resume lumbering along, walking heavily. Once every four hours we take turns carrying the equipment. Despite the heavy weight, it is easier for me with the equipment than without, because when the equipment is taken off me, I become a sentry, and a weapon passes into my hands.

I start scanning the surroundings. Even with the equipment, all the Zaharonim are eyes and especially ears – but without the equipment, eyes and ears are not enough. You also ‘listen’ with your feet. I move quickly, examining the undergrowth in three layers. To detect ambushes and hidden enemies, each bush is checked while lying down – the lowest part of the bush is ideal for a camouflaged enemy – then at eye level and up to a height where you wouldn’t ordinarily look – which is why it is so suitable for surprise attack. I run, check behind the rocks, examine the ground around them and look for signs in the soil and on the dry plants – a broken branch, a torn leaf or grains of sand that are out of place. After years of training, the entire routine is done using the legs, moving without stopping. When we do stop momentarily, I go among the Zaharonim, count them and transmit orders. At the end of each break, we have a little something to eat and continue. I wait for the mountain. I am waiting for the moment I can stop and quit looking around for a rock to take cover behind when they shoot at me.

I’m waiting for Hannah.

I’m waiting for sleep.

We are approaching the mountain. When you pass a branch during the day, you see it spread along the horizon, calling to us. When you pass the spur of a hill at night, you see a few lights high up. They await us on the mountain, they are cooking for us on the mountain; on the mountain you can rest. The column has stopped, wary of an ambush. For safety’s sake, we take positions for possible engagement with the enemy. I am weary. The straps of the rucksack have dug into my flesh. It will be months for the cuts to heal, and with every step the wounds go deeper.

In moments like these you don’t care about the Southerners or Easterners, you just want to get there, but our training does its work, and you keep looking for the nearest shelter and looking to see who is around you and what you will do if you are attacked. The time it takes to reach shelter will determine who will survive, and after all the training I know where the nearest shelter is and when I am nearing the next place of shelter. As I walk, I run through the shelters in my head.

There is no rest if we are not on the mountain.

I feel nauseous, I am aching for the mountain. I know everything on the ground before me. I have “hiked” through here many times; I know every bush in this valley. In a few more hours we’ll be on the mountain. I still feel sick to my stomach; my legs are shaking. I am longing for sleep, and we walk…

The mountain is now merely a few hundred meters distant.

We will arrive in a few minutes.

The cover positions are ahead of us, our first line of defense.

We have reached home.

Many women and a few men line the path, some of them with a finger to their lips, for us to be quiet. No reminder needed. The outer circle is comprised of camouflaged sentries in the bushes, to thwart a surprise attack. If you listen very carefully, you can hear someone sneaking up from hundreds of meters away. The outer circle’s listening has already saved numerous lives on the mountain.

A few of the women take some equipment off me and load it onto their backs. They caress my face. “Do not stop, Zaharon,” one of them says to me. “Continue on to the inner warehouse, so there won’t be a jam-up.” When you are at home, everything changes. At home you carry yourself differently and you think differently. At home, constant worry about a possible surprise attack gives way to other thoughts. The breaches between us disappear. We come together.

Thoughts of taking shelter give way to talks with the men and women about the events of the battle. The ascent was steep, but our fatigue diminishes and the power of speech erupts. I hear the column in front of me and behind me – group by group of Zaharonim men and women getting release from days of silence, pouring out words in a torrent of conversation. When we reach the inner warehouse, the rest of the equipment I’m carrying is taken from me for sorting.

Skilled hands gather it and motion for me to continue. The heavy weight has been lifted and the journey is over. The rucksack is off my back. What remains are the gashes on my shoulders, which continue to bleed. Singing rises up all around. We all sing the comeback songs together. These are not chants of victory nor songs of glory, but psalms of gratitude for those who did not return from the battle. The common singing unites us, brings us closer together, strengthening those who have returned and all those who are present. There are no songs of victory on the mountain. Even when we make it back to the mountain there are no celebrations. Constant fear is our commander, and feeling that the war is over is our enemy. The war goes on forever, a battle ended is always a preparation for the next one. Those who survived prepare to win the next battle. They ask to shine but once.

I go up towards the house, to the shelter of Mother Fatma. Now that the weight has been lifted from me, my muscles begin to contract. They become rigid and defy any movement. My shoulder blade muscles tense, creating pressure. Are they worried about me at home? Most likely they are not; they have already heard that I am among the returnees. The casualty lists arrived at the mountain two days before we did. But they are waiting for me. I’ll be home in an hour. I love the mountain walk, but I miss the silence of the trails in the darkness. Even though night has already fallen, there is a lot of foot traffic. Some Zaharonim return home with happy faces, others are already busy organizing their equipment, preparing for the next battle. There is something familiar and calming about the expanse of small fields spread out in all directions, to the edge of the horizon. Squares of different shades of green and brown vary from field to field. There are fields with tall crops, corn or wheat, depending on the season; others with low growing vegetation or grass. Between the fields lie neat piles of well-treated compost.

Farm tools are strewn in the field awaiting the next day. The plant beds are slightly swollen; the soil airy and soft. Hundreds of seasons of cultivation and fertilization have made it rich and full of life. The entire mountain, from east to west and north to south, is covered with endless layers of smoothness that resemble a baking cake that has swelled a little too much and has sunken. Narrow brown, well-worn paths run between the beds of soil. No one steps on the beds, so as not to compact the earth and do damage to the action of the organisms that enrich it. The bed width never exceeds two meters. In this way they can be worked from both sides.

The soil beds fill the horizon, but no two are alike.

Many are replete with different types of trellises for climbing vegetation. In others, dead grasses are the base for new climbing greenery. A live cover of uprooted grasses is scattered on some of the beds. They blanket the soil to prevent evaporation. In other beds, brown compost, smelling like fertile forest soil after the rain, forms a uniform layer between the vegetables.

In the mountain landscape, small and dense beds, each with a unique character, are a gentle and soothing sight for me. A variety of trees are planted between the beds, spaced from a few meters to tens meters apart. Here an impressive oak, there a young Pistacia plant. Over yonder are the pine tree spiked cones; the entire forest waiting for its seeds to be gathered. The trees are a treasure on the mountain; they enrich the soil and they take nourishment from it, giving shade and preventing the soil from drying up. They also provide food, firewood and lumber for construction.

But if they were to ignite, a raging fire would break out among them, so everyone in a shelter who works the soil makes sure they are trimmed and far apart. Any tree can be a dear friend, but the fact that it is easy for an enemy to set it on fire even from a distance makes it a guarded friend.

A pleasant breeze blows through the fields, and the coolness of the night occasionally infiltrates the clothes. Walking on the mountain without the heavy gear, along the well-worn paths and open fields, helps to heal the wounds, relaxes the muscles and melts the heart. The shelters are spread out in the fields – rooftops of different shapes and colors, built from the salvageable ruins. Sheets of fabric divide the space into separate rooms. People go in and out of the shelters. At such an hour, everyone is usually in a calming sleep, trusting in the protection of the circles standing guard around the mountain, shedding the effects of endless working hours.

I arrive at our shelter. Lital, my older sister, sits naked at the entrance. She is nursing two babies, one on each breast. She sees me and immediately stands up to hug me. The milk on her nipples moistens my shirt. “Dear Ohr, I am so glad you are here.” I don’t want to leave her embrace, but after a moment she goes and sits back down, nursing one baby and handing me the other. I gaze at him: this is Ronen, my sister Sveta’s son. I lean him on my shoulder and jiggle him gently, so that he hiccups and does not spit. He purrs with pleasure.

Lital smiles at me and her eyes shine. “You must be exhausted, little brother,” she says affectionately, “I see the dried blood on your shoulders. Do you want me to put a dressing on it?” I shake my head no. Fatigue is coming over me. I have held it at bay for days, and now, in front of my sister Lital, it overflows and overwhelms me. “Is Mom here?” “No,” says Lital. “She and the sisters are helping with the preparations, only I am here with the little ones.”

She looks at me with a smile. I try to return the smile and fail. “Go, my beloved brother,” she says. “Mom will understand. You deserve to be with Hannah for a while. That is what you are yearning for, aren’t you?”

She is right of course. “Say hello to Mom.”

“Sure. Say hello to Hannah.”

“Don’t you need some help with the little ones? Can you manage on your own?”

“Go, brother. You have earned it. We’ll get along.” She is lying and we both know it. She is alone with dozens of children to care for, after many hours of laboring in the sun, but she knows what we went through and she wants me to rest…

“Have you heard? Tomorrow, you don’t get up with us but you rest until noon.”

They almost never let the Zaharonim rest, but the body needs a few days to recover, yet rest softens the spirit. Within a day we will be back on full duty.

“Good, there will be time to sleep,” I say, and try to smile. She looks at me, still breastfeeding. I place baby Ronen at her bare feet and take her hand for a moment. “Goodbye, little brother,” she says.

After an hour of walking, I arrive at Mother Orna’s shelter. It is fashioned from red and blue carpets, which imbue it with a deep, heavy atmosphere.

“Hallo,” I call out loudly and enter.

No answer. The shelter is empty. I walk among the hanging carpets. Hannah says that before the flood they had belonged to the wealthiest. Now they are partitions between the mattresses. I move between the blue rhombuses, the green triangles, the gray circles and the interlocking rectangles. The carpets solemnly retain the pride of their history, a bit of their past life remains in them. Triangles and diamond shapes float in the air. I move forward and am already near Hannah’s thatched mattress. I recognize her weeding, and in my mind’s eye I can see her delicate hands braiding the twines at the end of the work day.

But she is not there. Only the image of her delicate hands is still in the room. It seems that she also went out to help with all of Orna’s daughters. Who is looking after the children? Maybe they took them with them, in case they needed to nurse.

I lie down slowly on the mattress and listen. I hear the sound of distant footsteps on the paths, a tree swaying, the fabric walls swinging slowly in the wind, rhombuses and circles dancing in space, the squares rising and falling in soft waves. My eyes immediately close.

Chapter 4

ONE BODY

I did not notice the soft light illuminating my body from between the partitions. While I was in a distant dream there came split-second visions of pulling off of clothing and the lifting of the body. These images raced through my mind for an instant, then merged into hundreds of other scenes, swept away by the flooding of fatigue. More and more flashes mix in with my dreams until my eyes open. The fog of sleep slowly dissipates as my body twitches in pain from the searing sensation of a cloth dabbing at my open wounds.

A soft hand is lain upon my forehead, gently pushing my head back down to the mattress, encouraging me to close my eyes again. Vaguely, almost in a dream, I feel a water-soaked cloth pass over the sores; first cleaning carefully around the edges and then, lightly touching them.

In my nostrils rises the fragrance of pine and lavender from the water being dripped on the wounds to initiate scabbing, to disinfect them and to relieve the pain. The cloth leaves the injuries and continues slowly down my body, dampening the exposed flesh, washing away the dirt of the long march and the strong sweat of effort and dread; from the neck to the shoulders and then along the arms, sending shivers down my spine. I feel drops of water on my stomach followed by the feel of the moistened fabric on my chest muscles, moving languorously from side to side on my bare torso. The damp cloth descends from the stomach to the pelvis and glides down to the thighs with a confident, yet delicate touch – all the way down to the bottom of my feet. The hands move up my inner thighs, sending a tremor through me as they ascend slowly between my legs, then rub the moisture-soaked fabric over my testicles. I feel the erection rising and the cloth rising and falling with my member, as it cleanses the only part of me that has not yet been soothed by the touch of the supple fingers. A few more drops of moisture along the shaft of my penis and then…soft lips wrap around it, sending spasms of desire through me. I am hard, then harder, as her lips go up and down on me. I feel her tongue and the soft suction…

With my eyes closed I grope and my hand finds a naked thigh. Waves of desire continue to rise between my legs. My hand slides up the soft skin of the thigh until it meets the lips of her wet vagina. Two fingers penetrate the soft wetness. I hear a moan as she pauses to feel my fingers moving within her. The fingers slide in and out and I feel her pulsating with pleasure. Her mouth continues around my shaft. For a moment we merge into one vibration of pleasure flowing between our legs, passing through the entire body. She stops and releases me from her lips. She rises and my fingers slide out of her. She straddles me and she is all around me, wet and warm, coming down on me, gliding me into her slowly. She moves up and down as I thrust inside of her, deeper and deeper, penetrating her softness, feeling every fold of her, every movement, going more inside her. She moves faster and moans with pleasure on top of me. My eyes open slightly and I see my Hannah. Her nipples are erect.

She rides me up and down on me, her eyes closed and I feel her contracting, squeezing me further in. Her beautiful face is tight with concentration, her breathing faster and faster. I reach for her mons, moving it between us and feel for her clit. My hand remains still, and her movements slide the clitoris over my fingertips. Her face is taut with pleasure and she clasps herself around me. Stronger waves of stimulation rise from the base of my organ. I close my eyes and feel the vibrations grow stronger, until my semen rises and pours into her lusting body. She moans and her body drops down on mine.

I run my hand along her back, caressing her, and I feel her wrap herself around me. Her soft weight on me is like a caress. Her vulva still enfolds my member in shared wetness. I run my hand along her body, going up and down it slowly, and she kisses my neck. My hands rest gently on her body. Her kisses are mingled with fatigue, with the draining aftermath of our loving. My eyes close and reality becomes blurry. Touch turns to dream and dream is reality, and with the soft touching I again sink into the mist…and I sleep.

Chapter 5

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN ALL
YEAR LONG – STILL DREAMING
AND QUESTIONING

The mountain looks different in daylight. Hannah came back from work, woke me with a hug and put some food by the bed. I reached for her, but she didn’t have time for another go-round. There is always a need for more working hours on the mountain, and even on the day after the return, everyone labors to produce food. I smile at the lines in her face and follow her sunburnt nape with my gaze as she strides away with steady, measured steps. She likes to keep busy. I know that Mother Orna would have let her stay with me a little while longer and wouldn’t say anything to her about it, but this is not Hannah’s way; the work saves her, it helps her forget.

At our place, at Mother Fatima’s, they would look at her with eyes urging her to return, but here the atmosphere is different. Every mother her own way. Since the flood, the women are in charge of the mountain. The men are busy protecting it and dying all around it. Therefore, unlike our neighbors to the north, south and east, the men own no property on the mountain, except for their weapons. In actuality, the women also have no property – everything belongs to the mother. All the men and women live on her property and follow her instructions. The blanket I sleep on, the cloths Hannah cleansed me with, even the bowl it took me a week to carve for Hannah when we were in the West – all of it belongs to Mother Orna.

I got organized, took my weapon and left. From the sun’s position I understood that it had been up for four hours. The wounds on my shoulders had begun to heal. Most of the pain was in my legs and back muscles. These would take weeks to fade.

I move forward with uncertain steps. When the muscles ache so badly, the legs must learn to walk again. Outside, life had returned to normal: the women work the plant beds, some of the Zaharonim are on their way to train in the valley, groups of small children play near their mother. The mothers in each shelter raise the mountain children together. At night the children sleep with their own mothers, but during the day, one mother watches over all of them. They take turns doing this. On the mountain, most people don’t know who the father of a child is, and most of the time it does not matter. Since it is the mothers who raise the children together and the children are under the mothers’ protection, the father’s identity is almost irrelevant. Each woman chooses who to have on her mattress and when. Some women have been with the same Zaharon for years, while others have been with many different Zaharonim, even with several at the same period of time. And there are those who invite a Zaharon to their mattress only rarely. Even in cases where the identity of the father is known, he has virtually no part in raising the child. The brothers and sisters in the shelter are responsible for raising the children; therefore, even in cases where the children know who their biological fathers are, they hardly ever meet with them. When we Zaharonim talk about “our children,” we are talking about all the children of our shelter, the children of our sisters.

My leg muscles begin to loosen up and I accelerate my pace, walking between the beds. I see women working diligently. Every now and then I come across a woman breastfeeding a child; sometimes nursing two at the same time – maybe one of them is hers and the other belongs to another mother, maybe both of them are from her sisters in the shelter. They always look at me with a smile. There is great appreciation for the Zaharonim on the mountain. The day is hot, so some of the women work half-naked, while others are dressed in colorful clothing – there is no particular meaning to being naked on the mountain and there is no shame in exposing the body, not for men or for women.

The sounds of little children are everywhere. I look at them fondly as they laugh and play. Children are vital on the mountain. You need as many Zaharonim around the mountain and as many women in the beds as possible to survive – that is, you need children to continue our existence. Since there is no birth control on the mountain, and only a few babies die, the population on the mountain is rapidly increasing. Soon we will have to move to another, larger site. Soon, we will not have enough space – some of the mothers who have given birth to several children are already prepared to set up new shelters of their own. After the flood many of the mothers adopted children, as Mother Fatima adopted me; but now the children in most of the shelters are biological offspring and they grow up with brothers and sisters from birth.

I love the calm and safety of walking on the mountain. When you move between the beds, you can identify which shelter each plant bed belongs to – each shelter has its own style. Many of the shelters provide for their own needs and conduct limited barter with other shelters close by. However, there are shelters that specialize only in a few specific crops, and their existence relies heavily on barter. It is difficult for shelters to exist completely independently on our mountain. Despite the agricultural methods we have developed to yield the most crops from every piece of land and our knowledge, which expands every year, and even though the gardens are abundant and new crops are being adopted and improved all the time – it is still difficult.

This difficulty stems mainly from service to the mountain: Each shelter gives half of their product to the Central Council. Some is used for food, but most of it stored for use in times of famine and scarcity. This is one of the main concerns of the Central Council. In the event of a disaster, the mountain will be able to subsist in a reduced capacity for two or three years without additional supplies. In any case, the canned food is normally taken out after two years and distributed equally among the shelters. In practice, therefore, most of the output that goes to the Central Council eventually returns to the shelters.

However, the food given to the Council is not the main problem for the shelters.

If that were the case, the shelters would enjoy enormous abundance. The real difficulty is the constant lack of laborers to work the beds: even the Zaharonim who have completed their training still dedicate half their working days to military maneuvers, preparing to shine for a final time. We can devote ourselves to working the beds only a few days a week, and these are the days we look forward to. The days of Zaharon maneuvers are the hardest. But the one special day everyone waits for – both the women and the Zaharonim – is the sabbath day. This is specialization day, a day of internship. Make no mistake, it is also a day of hard work; every day on the mountain is a day of hard work, but on specialization day each one is engaged in their chosen specialty. That day is when the specialization groups meet, made up of various shelter mentors. They deal with learning, knowledge transfer, writing, and research. Each woman and each Zaharon chooses a field of study that must be approved by the Mother of their shelter. In rare cases, the Mother may determine what they will specialize in, even if it is against their wishes. For women, the choice is often a combination of personal preference and the needs of the shelter. All areas of specialization on the mountain are hands-on and practical.

The women’s specialties include medicine, grain growing, legume growing, construction engineering, mechanics, electricity, childbirth and breastfeeding, soil improvement, fruit trees and fruit bushes, teaching science to children, and the like. Zaharonim also have areas of expertise. A few Zaharonim are in the women’s specialization groups, but most of the men, about two-thirds, are in martial arts and language specialization groups: Arabic dialects of the east, south, or north, Krav Maga, stealth, camouflage, activation of explosives and more.

Since the specialization groups are comprised of people from different units and shelters, they play an important role in connecting the shelters with the other units on the mountain. Communication and a common language are created in the groups as are personal relationships. Gossip and information about what is happening in the shelters also pass through them.

The specialization groups are tasked not only with preserving and adapting knowledge from before the flood, but mainly with developing new and practical skills. Each group conducts experiments and tests and distributes the results in writing to all the groups in the same field. The groups have another important role: each specialist brings the expertise of his field back to his shelter, and when it comes to combat specialization, to his emergency unit as well. In this way, each shelter and each unit is exposed to many different areas of specialization that benefit everyone.

The internship days are on the seventh day of the week, and no one works the beds. Even on Friday there are no hands working in the fields. Friday is a day for public works, where everyone works on projects assigned by the Central Council for the entire mountain: draining streams to prevent flooding and soil erosion, digging water reservoirs and cleaning and improving the existing reservoirs, maintenance of the paths between the beds, planting trees for lumber and fruit, upkeep of the emergency reservoirs, and more.

The entire burden of the internship days, the public work days and the training days of the emergency workers falls on the shelters, who make sure that not a minute is wasted. The children also, as soon as they are old enough, help with the beds. Already at the age two or three, they learn to weed and bring tools to the women and Zaharonim who work in the shelter beds.

Until the age of nine, the children study in their mother’s shelter, and are part of the family. In this framework they study Arabic and English. On Sundays everyone speaks only Arabic, and on Mondays only English. Thus, by the age of nine, all the children can achieve a high level of speaking in three different languages. The adults are also fluent in them. Because the books that we managed to save after the flood are written in these three languages, knowledge of them is essential for all the specialization groups. In addition, it is obligatory to know the languages of the enemy on the mountain – preservation of life is above all.

The children on the mountain are physically strong. From the age of five they work in the beds several hours a day. Concurrently, one of the mothers, in rotation, teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic and science for several hours a day. These are the only subjects of study. On the mountain one learns only what contributes to continue living, i.e. producing better food and winning battles.

When a child reaches nine years of age, his life changes forever – although in different ways for girls than for boys. For the boys, this is the age at which he joins the Zaharonim unit to which he will belong for the rest of his life. This group will be more important to him than the shelter in which he was raised. From age nine to age seventeen, the boy will see the people he began his life with only once a month at the most. After eight years he will return to the shelter a different person.

Until age thirteen, the boys’ studies are mainly theoretical. They rise at 5 a.m. every morning, and at six they start learning Arabic, followed by the English lesson. The speech is already familiar to them, and in any case all subjects will be taught in Arabic on Sundays and in English on Mondays. The hour after the language lessons that last till noon, is dedicated to science and math.

Academic studies end at one in the afternoon. At two o’clock, after lunch, physical training begins: sports, hiking, stealth training, plant identification, camouflage, Krav Maga, knife fighting, learning to shoot a rifle, and more. At seven p.m. the school day is over, and at eight the exhausted boys are sound asleep.

This is the way they live for four years, four days a week. The fifth day is a day of field maneuvers – moving in silence, without making the slightest noise. On the sixth day, they work in groups on public tasks, as all the mountain dwellers do.

The boys also look forward to specialization day. They count the minutes of hard work all week until the day comes, and they rush to the group. In the group there is no strict discipline, no running or strength exercises, and the older mountain dwellers explain to the boy with a smile everything he wants to learn about his field of expertise. Each child is assigned to a specific adult for six months in the specialization group. The adult almost always teaches him with patience and warmth. This is how the internship group becomes a home, a place of comfort and reassurance.

The girls train in a similar way from age nine to thirteen. Their study groups are separate, but the content is the same and so is the structure of the day and the week. Unlike the boys, they return home with their weapons once every two weeks, in order to maintain a closer relationship with the sisters under the mother’s shelter. That’s where they belong even during training.

At the age of fourteen, the paths of the boys and girls diverge. The girls return to the shelter with their weapons, and from now on they will undergo only periodic reinforcement training. Four years will be enough for them to learn to be the mountain’s last line of defense – moreover, this is the age when they begin getting pregnant and bring a new generation of Zaharonim and women to the mountain. In each mother’s group, sisters will attend to them and help them through pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and in raising children for the first time. On the mountain, fourteen is considered a reasonable age for pregnancy. On the mountain, no one is expected to suppress their libido, and in any case, children are too vital a resource to postpone. From this stage onward the combat aspect of their lives will be secondary to their work and activity within the shelter under the watchful eye of the mother, the dominant figure in their world.

When a girl returns from training to the shelter, she is expected to have a day of celebration. The shelter is decorated, and all the sisters prepare a soft bed and comfortable clothes for her. Preparations for the return day begin months before her arrival. The day she arrives is a day of freedom and dancing; her sisters accompany her with singing all the way to the shelter. This is the day when she evolves from a child to a woman, from a student to a member with equal rights among the sisters under the mother. It is a day of family, joy, and love.

When they are fourteen years old, the boys enter Hell. From then until age seventeen they do not return home, to mother’s shelter. During these three years there are no studies except for the martial arts. The intensity of the physical and mental training is what gives the boys’ advanced training its name – Hell – and it has one clear goal: every response or action of a Zaharon should be automatic. He must perform the most complex actions with ease, without thinking, and at the same time be alert and communicative, fully aware of his surroundings. A false move made by one Zaharon means noise, possible detection and death for his entire unit. A failed exercise will end in discovery in enemy territory and the killing of everyone.

Deep inside the battle terrain, no helicopters will come to save us; no cavalry will come riding to the rescue. If we are discovered on one of our forays, we will all be killed. There is no room for mistakes – and Hell training is designed to prevent them from happening. On a mission, there is no pain, no fear, no fatigue. Either you carry it out to the end or you die. This message is not learned by rote; it is learned the hard way, with three years of carrying heavy weights, constant apprehension, and hunger. Pain is our master teacher.

The idea behind Hell is simple. All combat skills – stealth, camouflage, movement in formation, attack, defensive maneuvers, fighting, taking down a sentry and much more – are studied in depth and practiced to perfection. After you master each skill, you can perform it even in pain: after a five-day fast, over and over again, until even after the fast and the pain, your performance is perfect. With fifty kilos on our backs, again and again, even then the performance is flawless. Even after a hundred-kilometer trek; again and again, and again and again and again… The goal in Hell is survival; not everyone who starts Hell will come out of it alive. On the mountain, everyone knows that this is the price that must be paid, and that at such a level of training, not everyone will survive. In Hell there are injuries and there are deaths, and when a boy is brought back dead to his sisters in the shelter, there is no anger on the mountain, only dutiful sorrow – this is the price of our survival.

Two hours of walking brought me to the top of Mount Oranim. I stopped and looked around. From here you can see the valleys, the plains and terraces stretching to infinity, and on them are the plant beds where small dotted figures are moving. From this height you can also see the calming blue sea coast. A light wind blows, bringing with it the smell of the sea. When we were on treks off the mountain in Hell training, this was the place I missed the most.

The first time I came here was after one of my tantrums as a child. I was new to the shelter, but I had already managed to attack one or two of the other children. That day, I recall I attacked Lital, who was five years old at the time. I leaped on her like a big, snarling cat, biting and scratching. She screamed, and so did the children around us.

The sisters of the shelter rushed from the beds and pulled me off her. One of them, Sigal, held me tightly. I squirmed in her arms, trying to kick her. “Ohr, I will not allow you to continue to hurt other children!” she said angrily.

“Enough,” one of the other sisters told her. “Mama Fatima is right – just let him go, it will take time. Do you remember how we found him…?”

Sigal’s grip loosened a little, and I took the opportunity to sink my teeth into her soft palm with all my strength. The wound started to bleed and I escaped from her grip and ran up the path. I kept running. It must not have been more than a few score meters – as a child, distances seemed many times greater. I looked back while I was running, to see if I was being chased. I saw Sigal clutching her hand, her face contorted in pain, and the children staring at her in fear and surprise. No one was following me, but as I was running without looking ahead, I ran into something large and soft, and in a moment, I was lifted up off the ground. The thing enveloped me from all sides. I kicked and struggled, but I could not get loose.

It was Mother Fatima. She was a large, plump woman, and wore layer upon layer of clothing. She did not let go her hold on me despite my kicking and scratching, and after a few minutes I stopped struggling. My body went limp and tears came. I had not cried since I arrived on the mountain, and here, in her powerful, enveloping embrace, held in her strong arms, the tears filled my eyes.

Mother Fatima did not speak; she just stood and let me cry. Finally, she began walking and I buried my face on her shoulder in shame and fear. I didn’t know where she was taking me. Only when she stopped did I open my eyes: She had brought me back to the shelter, to her mattress, where she laid me down and then lay down next to me. I reached out and hugged her. She stroked my head, and when I looked up at her face, I saw that her eyes were also filled with tears. I fell asleep in her arms. It was the first time I had been able to sleep soundly since I arrived at the shelter.

When I woke, I found her heavy arms still hugging me. We rose in silence and left the shelter hand in hand. We walked between the plant beds and continued walking to here, to the top of Mount Oranim, the pine tree mountain. Mother Fatima looked out over the sea with me and relished the caress of the pleasant mountain breeze alongside me.

In the following months, we returned there together several times. Mother Fatima taught me how to calm myself and how to breathe deeply when I was on the verge of losing control. I had been afraid to close my eyes, afraid of the memories, but Mother Fatima instilled confidence in me. With her by my side, I allowed my eyes to close and to breathe in and out, slowly and deeply.

When I turned nine, a messenger from my new unit came to the shelter. I said goodbye to my brothers and sisters, and when Mother Fatima came to say goodbye to me with a hug, I felt like I was going to suffocate. She hugged me; I did not look up at her and I did not hug her back. I stood frozen in her heavy arms. It took all the strength I could muster to do the breathing she taught me and not to cry. Mother Fatima did not let go. “My boy,” she whispered. “My love, you will come back to us and sleep beside me, will you not?”

I didn’t answer; I didn’t cry, and I did not move. Just breathed as she had taught me. Mother Fatima still held me tightly. Finally, one of the brothers came and pulled me out of her arms. The man from the unit – at that time I still did not know his name, Commander Ido, who I did not know that from that moment on would be my support – took my hand and together we walked down the path.

I did not look back. I did not see if she was watching me walking away, if she cried or waved goodbye. I just walked quietly beside the stranger, concentrating on my breathing, paying careful attention to keep walking.

Since that day I never hugged Mother Fatima again. Even when I returned to the shelter once a month, before Hell, I hardly stayed in the shelter. I wandered among the other beds and shelters. I went up to Mount Oranim to feel the wind, to close my eyes and picture in my mind the comforting hug I could no longer accept. I did not crawl stealthily on the ground, I did not struggle carrying the weight of the equipment, nor did I look for enemies behind every bush. I merely sat looking out at the sea.

In the months of Hell training, even when I was as tired as I had ever been, even when sleep threatened to snare me, and I sought to be engulfed within it, I would lie in the dark struggling to stay awake just another moment and imagine myself sitting here as I was sitting now, looking out at the sea and yielding to the refreshing touch of the wind. The view was the same; the blue was the same blue it once was, the soft beds still were spread on the fields all around, but I had changed. Not everyone comes back from the Hell training, but those who do, are no longer the same as they were before they went through it.

I sat under the tree and breathed. Later in the day, we will be sent back to training – rest is not good for young warriors – but for now I wanted a few more moments to sit under the pine tree and imagine Fatima’s warm, loving arms around me again. But I felt nothing. It has been like this for years now. Her comforting arms recede further and further into the mist, swallowed up in the darkness.

RACHELI

Chapter 6

…AND THE ANIMAL

Racheli awoke to a normal morning, not to a day that would be her last one as “Racheli.”

It was half past four in the morning. Asaf was still asleep under the blanket that had covered their naked bodies. His full lips were slightly open and he was breathing heavily.

Racheli sat up on the mattress that was nestled in the middle of the messy bedroom. She was eager to practice the new technique she had read about yesterday. She got off the mattress and hurried to shower and dress. She had five hours before the rest of the participants in the course would be getting up and begin to shed the cobwebs of sleep and fatigue from the social evening she had skipped – as usual. Throughout the course, the participants would stay every evening to play a variety of instruments and sing the songs of the land together. These moments were the center of their social life, the smiles and warmth wove them together into a group.

But that was not for Racheli. In the afternoons, she would return to Asaf and Merav’s house to read and then fall asleep in the slowly descending darkness on the trees outside. It was a good sleep into which she fell, accompanied by the sounds of guitar and singing from the house next door and words from the books she was reading floating in the space of the room. A good sleep, thanks to which she woke up when the first light of dawn peeked through the darkness. These early morning hours meant valuable practice time for her: a few quality hours to practice the techniques she had not yet mastered, test new ones she had read about in the books she ordered from the United States, or to try other options that required training and fine-tuning.

She went out of the bedroom, passing by Merav, Asaf’s wife, who was sleeping curled up on the couch in the living room, her wavy hair covering her face. The blanket had fallen from her in her sleep. Racheli picked it up, covered Merav and continued to the door without making a sound. Soft sunlight illuminated the living room and she went out into the morning.

Kibbutz Hakok was still sleeping, and only faint rays of sunlight shown on the concrete sidewalks. She was planning to climb to the field above the ecological neighborhood, but instead she went down the path towards the Pistacia lentiscus bushes that she had been using for the past three weeks, since starting the advanced course for permaculture – sustainable agriculture.

Racheli’s hands felt for the small leather pouch that was attached by a leather strap to the belt of her pants, also made of processed leather. She pulled out a small, razor-sharp flint from the pouch, and after a few seconds she whittled down a small twig from the plant into a toothpick that she used between her teeth.

All the people in the houses around her were immersed in deep slumber. They did not see in their mind’s eye the hundreds of generations of the inhabitants of the land who had observed the daily ritual of disinfecting their mouth with the branches of the Pistacia lentiscus – and therefore had almost never suffered from problems with their gums and teeth. From Father Abraham to the last of the prophets Racheli knew, all had known the pungent taste of the bush every morning – just like yoga practitioners in India had the bitter taste of the sandalwood tree in their mouths every morning; every region of the world with its own morning sanitizing tree.

Even the dogs beyond the fences were asleep. Racheli advanced stealthily as a fox along the path, moving effortlessly, out of habit, in the utter silence. After years of this practice, it was trying to walk alongside other people without stealth, that required effort and thought from her. She continued up the hill, beside the concrete path, letting the trees and bushes obscure a full view of her form. Racheli moved absent-mindedly, letting her thoughts wander to the new bird trap she would build this morning. She also gave thought to the new techniques for the quick and intensive creation of compost – techniques reviewed yesterday in the course. In her mind’s eye she saw the others sitting or lying on the mat and listening. She thought of them with affection and appreciation. She felt comfortable around them. The small axe that hung on the left side of her belt was not strange to them; they saw it as evidence of her skill.

In this society she was considered a competent and knowledgeable person, someone to consult with, not an eccentric being in bizarre clothing. Although she was never really fully integrated in the group, in this place everyone looked up to her; they understood what she did and they appreciated the artisan’s hand with which she had taken the stomach lining of a dead wolf she found in the field and turned it into the leather pouch on her belt. Here she was not seen as an object of disgust. Her many daily hours of practice were admired here, and not perceived as an abnormality to be merely tolerated.

Racheli loved to train. In recent years she had read almost every book written on the subjects that fascinated her. She bought, borrowed, and ordered countless books, in Hebrew and English, garnering thousands of hours of practice from them. But none of that will prepare her for the encounter awaiting her this day.

She moved forward joyfully, taking quick steps alongside the bushes. With each step, brushing aside dry leaves to prevent any noise, and when she left the neighborhood, she moved on to the dirt paths aglow with the first rays of the morning sun. Now she was exposed in the deserted fields, and knowing she was visible quickened her steps. While walking, she perceived the events of the night preserved in the markings on the sand: three stone-curlews chasing each other four hours earlier; a green lizard pursuing and catching a grasshopper by the side of the path; a young viper crossing the path an hour ago. A few minutes before, it had caught a small prey, probably a beetle, and was looking for a safe place to spend the hot hours of the day. The way animals moved taught her about the actions they carried out. Just like in humans, among animals, play, hunt, and courtship required different patterns of movement. The wear on the sides of the footprints showed her how long it had been since they were imprinted there. Thus, with her skilled tracker eyes, Racheli saw tiny figures come to life and move along and across the path. Every turn of the head, every pause, every change of position altered the imprint pattern and left evidence in the sand: tracks bustling with life.

And in the morning that rose slowly with the first rays of the sun, she was surrounded by the mark of living creatures left there at different hours of the night. Racheli stopped at one of them and raised a small cloud of dust.

Until that moment, Racheli had walked in silence and so as not to disturb the animals’ morning endeavors. Humans walking in the fields seldom encounter animals, not because they are not there, but because they hear them from a distance and freeze in place, lying on the ground, or hurrying away to hide. But now, from the moment the animals in her surroundings sensed Racheli’s, it was most of them who either froze or ran away.

Racheli only saw them out of the corner of her eye and paid them no attention. She was completely absorbed by a sudden surprise beneath her feet.

To the untrained observer, it was an odd spectacle: a young woman, her brown hair smooth and flowing, kneeling on the dirt path in the first glow of sunlight, staring intently at... what appeared to be nothing. Just staring at an empty dirt path. But Racheli was not an untrained observer, and she understood what her eyes were seeing: six pawprints crossing the path from west to east. She had never come across such markings and had no prior knowledge of their existence. She tried to comprehend…there was no doubt that this was some kind of cat; the absence of nails and the rounded shape of the markings clearly showed that. But these pawprints were giant, larger than a human footprint. Maybe a tiger!?

Since she had never seen such tracks and did not know what animal had left them, she could not conjure up an image of what the animal looked like. She weaved and bobbed back and forth, leaning down and staring at the markings on the trail, scrutinizing the pawprints in amazement. She deduced that the creature moved slowly and calmly. It did not have the concentration of a ravenous beast; rather its gait was powerful and regal. Little by little, from every curve, depression and movement of the ground, an image of the big animal appeared in Racheli’s mind: a very large feline creature, about two-thirds the height of a woman. The visualization process was not automatic for her, as it was with animals she was already familiar with, but within a few moments, Racheli could already picture the animal at a slow gallop in the field.

What is such an animal doing here?

Racheli was breathing heavily; she felt her heart rate speeding up. Suddenly, she understood exactly what she had to do. She broke away almost by force from the mesmerizing pawprints and ran back to the kibbutz with the speed of a lithe fox. In complete silence, she passed like the wind between the houses of the ecological neighborhood, whose tranquil residents were still sleeping, and reached the door of Asaf and Merav’s house, which had been her temporary home for the past few weeks.

She opened the door a crack as she always did, slowly and soundlessly, peeked in through the narrow slit, and only then opened the door wide. She entered quietly. Merav was still sleeping. Racheli felt deep affection for Merav, who had been her friend for the past few years, and wanted to hug her goodbye. To Asaf she wanted to give more than just a goodbye hug, but all that would have to wait.

Racheli hurriedly gathered her few belongings. All she possessed in the world fit easily into the small leather bag she had made herself from the skin of a wild boar she found dead after it had collided with a truck. She found a sheet of paper and a pen. “I have gone on a short trip and will probably be back in a few days,” she wrote on the sheet of paper and put it by the door. Merav and Asaf knew her well, and she was sure they would understand.

Slowly and silently, as was her way for years, Racheli passed between the houses, beginning a journey at the end of which nothing would ever be the same again.

Chapter 7

OF MICE AND MEN

Racheli saw from the tracks that the animal went down the cliffs to Nahal Amud at a relaxed but brisk pace, occasionally stopping to look and sniff around. Racheli advanced along its tracks, treading swiftly like a fox, as the image of the big animal ran before her. In the past, she had spent many hours crawling at the height of a fox or jackal to see the world from their perspective and enter into their thoughts – trying to understand what the animal notices and what it does not, what it is interested in and what it looks at while it is moving. Sometimes, informed by the many tracking books she had read, she would look at the animal from a hiding place and then closely examine its tracks, transposing into reality the movements from the marks she saw that it left in the sand. A hungry animal, she knew, moved in straight, structured lines with no excess of movement. Racheli discovered that she herself also began to move this way after a few days of fasting. The steps of an animal eager to play, on the other hand, were heavier, and the animal’s weight shifting with the movements of its head was evident in the trail it left.

After years of experience, Racheli was able to run swiftly alongside the markings on the trail. A quick glance at them, and her mind could always formulate an image of the animal’s movements. But the animal she was following this time was unfamiliar to her, and so her own pace was slower than usual.

The beast continued down Nahal Amud. Racheli kept to the trail, which began to widen and curve slightly to the left, as the animal mounted a pile of rocks in the center of the wadi, stopped and sniffed the air, moving its head from side to side. Head movements change the distribution of weight on the legs, and after extensive training one could tell by the tracks where the animal looked while on the move. Unlike on soil, on the rock, pawprints are not deeply embedded, but there is a light layer of dust on the rocks, and a skilled tracker can see where the dust has been displaced and thus continue following the pawprint line on the rocks, identifying the places where the paw was set down. Racheli visualized how the animal jumped from rock to rock and understood how strong it was: easily leaping a distance of one and a half meters, moving swiftly between the rocks. What was it looking for? It was not hungry or fearful. Was it running away from human masters? But who would keep such an animal? And how did it get here?

Racheli sat bent over on the rocks and also looked around.

Crows were hopping among the grasses below her searching for morning food. Racheli observed them inquisitively. Birds are nature’s information network, yet these birds seem unconcerned. They must have calmed down after the big beast passed. Did it get that far? A light wind blew in the stream channel, shaking the jujube branches. Some overripe fruits fell to the ground. To the untrained observer the land appeared dry and devoid of food, an assortment of robust weeds and branches, but to Racheli’s experienced eyes the area was bustling with life and full of accessible food. She approached one of the jujube trees, quickly picked some fruits from it and put them in a bag she kept in her pouch. Afterwards, she continued walking silently, following the animal markings. Every now and then she popped a piece of the fresh fruit in her mouth.

Meanwhile, the animal advanced along the route of the channel approaching the Sea of Galilee. Is it looking for water? It appears that the beast entered a clump of Vitex agnus-castus, known as Abraham Bush, where it stopped, half bent, and looked attentively ahead.

Racheli followed the tracks into the bush. The tracks she found there taught her about the nocturnal activity of mice in the area. She had no doubt that the great beast had also been aware of them. Unlike humans, members of the feline genus do not use their sense of sight when following tracks, but their sense of smell, which is incredibly powerful: each animal leaves its own distinct scent along its walking path, and big cats are able to track prey even from miles away.

The pawprints taught Racheli that the animal had looked out of the bushes towards the beach for several minutes, surveying and examining the surroundings. Was it surprised? Did it have something planned? Maybe it found food.

Racheli positioned herself where the big animal had stood in the bush and looked out ahead. On the beach sat a young woman in full length clothing, and a broad-beaked hat on her head. Her orangish hair and fair-skinned, freckled throat made it clear why she was protecting herself from the sun. She was reading a book. A few dozen meters from her, on the edge of the fresh water of the lake, a young man in a bathing suit was playing with two long-haired little children. After a few minutes of watching, the faces and voices connected. Racheli recognized the family from the morning meeting of the Garden Keepers, the organization where she had taken her first steps learning the ancient skills.

She came to the introductory meeting of the organization almost by chance, after coming across an advertisement online. The session began on Thursday at noon and ended on Saturday evening. It included only a few basic skills, but the connection was immediate: the capacity to focus quietly, without the hustle and bustle of people around you, the need to practice deep thinking along with physical skill, all of which fit Racheli like a glove. She found in the ancient skills a logic and order that she did not find in other fields. She found in them an opportunity to focus and practice as she had always loved to do, without the necessity of constantly trying to interpret social norms that, for her, made no sense. At the conclusion of the meetings, she signed up for the organization’s instructor course.

These meetings for the instructor course of the Garden Keepers were held over extended weekends and each meeting focused on a different topic: scouting, lighting a fire, stealth, making stone tools, identifying and collecting plants and more. The technical aspects were easy for Racheli. In fact, she had practiced and read so much already that knowledge and skill levels exceeded those of some of the instructors teaching the course. In a short time, other participants in the course started asking her questions, and she easily demonstrated to them different techniques, and corrected and guided others when asked. But besides the technical skills, the course also dealt with training skills, especially in the second year, and those bored her. At the end of the course, she decided not to become an instructor. However, her good relations with the circle of instructors were maintained, as was their appreciation for her.

On one of the weekends, Jasmin called and asked her to replace her in teaching a group of children. Many of the instructors at the Garden Keepers made a living by running nature skills classes for children and youth. Racheli did not like to guide, but she was glad to help. She and the children ground acorns from the Tabor oak to make flour and then she lit a fire with them for baking. It seemed to her that the children were enjoying themselves, yet she was relieved when the session was over. She found it exhausting.

At the end of that meeting, Rotem, mother of the twins Uria and Nur, approached her. Her freckled face shone as she turned to Racheli. “I am so glad you are here. Jasmin told us so much about you, it’s wonderful to finally meet you.”

Racheli was not sure what the right response was, so she said nothing and merely smiled. Experience had taught her that in most cases, such a response was well received. It was clear that it did not trouble Rotem, who continued pouring out words, smiles and laughter. A happy yet not very practical woman, Racheli thought. It is evident that she has plenty of time and energy. Rotem also asked Racheli to examine a basket she had woven during the meeting. The basket was made of long stems from date clusters. Racheli sat down next to her and inspected the braiding, which was obviously the work of an inexperienced hand – which was understandable. Although in the past, the date tree had been one of the most important plants in Israel, and countless items were made from its various parts: baskets, mats, sandals, ropes and tools, but the skill had almost been forgotten. Racheli, who was fascinated by almost any skill of this kind, had traveled a few years earlier to Kibbutz Ein-Gedi and there she devoted almost two months to learning the art of weaving the date palm from Michal, who had brought the skill back to Israel after learning it from the women of a tribe in Morocco (“I told them that no one was willing to marry me because I did not know how to weave baskets,” Michal told Racheli and laughed.)

Racheli indicated to Rotem where she had made a mistake in the weaving, and showed her how to fix it. While they were sitting there, Nur came running to them, climbed up on his mother, hung on her neck and finally lay down in her lap and toyed with her hair. Rotem laughed and caressed his face while watching Racheli’s hands expertly braiding the sensans – the thin branches of the date tree to which dates are tied – and he showered her with kisses. Finally, he had gotten up and ran off to play in the sand. Uria, the other twin, circled around them, and every now and then had come running to show his mother something he had found or to ask her for a hug and a kiss, which she was happy to give…

But now, Racheli remained hidden behind the bushes and watched Rotem sitting and reading calmly and Uria and Nur playing happily with their father at the water’s edge. They did not notice her just as they had not noticed the large feline that observed them a few minutes ago from the bushes – but the shadows looked at them.

Racheli did not even consider approaching them now. She was too busy chasing the big beast, who would not wait for her, and was already advancing along the valley. Racheli turned her gaze to the paw prints that continued west. She emerged from the cover of the bush and followed the prints, swiftly, silently, and unseen.

Chapter 8

BATTLE OF THE TRACKERS

The animal advanced rapidly towards the southwest, along the pathways leading down to the Sea of Galilee. Its walk was faster and more purposeful now. Racheli knew that animals, like humans, move out of necessity – hunger or thirst, curiosity or threats motivate them to move in a certain direction.

But what motivated this animal before her? It was not moving at random, that much was clear, but now it was evident in the tracks that this was something new: the animal had stopped now and then, turned its head back and sniffed. Why? As it progressed, the sniffing became more frequent and longer. Large animals are sometimes able to sense smells from tens of kilometers distance. Had it caught Racheli’s scent following it?

Racheli advanced to the high cliffs that had emerged from the stream to the plain above. The tracks taught her that the animal had begun to ascend. Racheli began to climb, following her, but the cliffs were steep and the climb could take a long time, so she changed direction and began descending the cliffs at a sharp angle, with the intention of going down and circling around them. When she finished the descent, she walked briskly, circled the cliffs and ascended to the great plain above the stream. This ascent was also steep and took some time – more time than she had thought it would take.

When she finally reached the plain above the stream, she began cutting, changing direction. When you follow a person or an animal and lose its trail, or when you want to shorten the way to the destination to where it is headed, you leave the path and turn at an angle to the place where it is likely to have crossed, until you discover the tracks again. Cutting to the path. Racheli did not know where the animal chose to climb from, so she walked along the cliff and carefully examined the ground.

When she reached the edge of the cliff, she realized she had missed the animal. I should have kept climbing up after it, she thought. A little effort – and it would have taken less time than this whole business. Still, she wondered, how could she have missed its pawprints at the top of the cliff!? Prints so big and clear, it is impossible not to have noticed them.

Racheli walked along the cliff again, but she didn’t find the tracks this time either. With no other choice, she went down again and circled round the cliffs, back to the last prints she had seen before losing sight of them. She found them beneath the cliff, and beside them were her own footprints.

But to her surprise she now saw a third set of footprints – someone had walked on the same path, two hours after she did! Racheli’s eyes widened. She had left these footprints three and a half hours ago – and he had passed here after her about an hour and a half ago. The discovery surprised her, as she moved back and forth scrutinizing the trail of footprints. There were places where the other tracker had stopped for a moment and examined the ground, but it was clear that he was not looking at the animal’s tracks, but at hers. A realization flashed through her mind: Someone was following her, and if it wasn’t for the mistake she made by not climbing to the top of the cliff, she wouldn’t have discovered this fact until he reached her.

Examining the tracks, she perceived that the other tracker was most likely a man. He was very thin, although his footprints were big. According to the depth of the footprints, his weight should be about sixty-five kilograms. From his speed and where he had chosen to stop, she surmised that he was a talented and skilled tracker.

Who could it be?

Racheli knew everyone in the field skilled enough to do this.

There were not many of them in Israel. Maybe Asaf? she asked herself. Asaf first studied with the Garden Keepers, and since then has participated in international tracking courses. Today he is responsible for the certification of IDF trackers and was almost at Racheli’s level in tracking. But this sudden appearance of tracks was not from Asaf – Racheli knew his footprint, the way he walked and his weight, and they were very different from those of the one who followed her.

She promptly prostrated herself on the ground in complete silence. She moved soundlessly to the shade of a rock. Whoever was following her – she thought a moment before she had gotten on the ground – must also have lost the trail on the cliff, and now he too was making, or had just finished making, his own detour. Is he watching me now? Did he manage to find the footprints on the cliff and see me moving around it?

The thought troubled her, but in a moment, she realized that this was not possible. After all, on the way back around the cliff, she did not see his tracks trailing her.

She stood up and moved slowly up the cliff, quiet and attentive. She followed the animal’s tracks on the cliffs and also recognized the other tracker’s marks following her. She saw exactly where he had lost track of her when he didn’t figure out the angle she took going down because she had jumped to a rock below her. His mistake made her realize her own mistake: she had lost the animal by cutting around the cliffs because it had jumped from the cliff to one of the rocks on the plain. That is why there were no pawprints near the edge of the cliff. If she hadn’t been tired from the hours of brisk walking, she certainly would have understood that already. In any case, now she was glad for the mistake. After all, without it she wouldn’t have gone back and discovered the surveillance of the other tracker.

From the markings she saw that the other tracker had continued up and then stopped and looked ahead for several minutes. When she got to that place, she realized what he was looking at and why he had stopped: the animal’s tracks showed that it was standing behind a large rock crouched, and not moving, waiting there for a quarter of an hour. Racheli immediately understood: The animal had stopped and was waiting for her. If she had continued climbing up the cliff after the animal, she would have met up with it. “The animal knows it is being tracked!” Racheli said out loud. Did it also know about the other tracker? She shuddered with sudden fear. What would have happened if she had caught up with the animal!?

The other tracker had stopped at this spot for several minutes. He must have been debating whether to follow the animal, which he eventually did. Racheli knew that even if she moved without a sound she could fall into an ambush, so she tried to distance herself from the tracks and approached them only when it was necessary. It was clear to her now that three were playing the game.

Racheli wasn’t worried about the other stalker. She was curious about him. People who engage in the field of hunter-gatherer skills are almost always people who do not have the propensity for violence. She perceived their struggle as a fun game between two skilled trackers – and this was a game she intended to win.

But the third player did worry her, and by the looks of the tracks left by the other stalker’s cautious movements, she understood that he was also worried about the third player. Did the animal want to harm her? Maybe just hide from her? Or devour her? Animals in the wild do not lie in wait for humans. Animals in the wild, even the biggest and strongest among them, will do everything to avoid contact with humans, and will attack them only in a situation where there is no other choice. If an animal in the wild grasps that a human is following her, it will immediately move faster, and under no circumstances lie in wait for him. What the devil is this animal? Racheli thought. Still, after another minute she continued climbing. Her fascination with the game overcame her fear.

Chapter 9

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?

The fast movement throughout the day, around and on the cliffs, took their toll on Racheli. Her whole body was tired. The sunlight began to dim and she had to settle down for the night. She searched and found a suitable location: a cluster of blackthorn bushes. She cleared a protected space in the area between the bushes with nimble hands and began preparing it for sleep. She estimated that there was still half an hour of daylight left. She had many tasks still ahead of her before she could lie down on the mat to sleep.

She circled the area for a few minutes to learn what animals had roamed here the night before. After that, she collected a bit of food from the bushes and grass to add to what she had gathered along the way and what she had carried in the pouch when she set out. She then made a bed of leaves and spread her blanket on it; even when it is hot, insulation from the ground is essential. She then gathered leaves from carefully chosen plants. The composition of the plants and their quantity were important. She separated the fresh leaves into two piles. She kneaded one of them in her hands until they became a paste, spread it over parts of her body that were not covered by clothing, and put a little of it on the clothes. This plant paste will repel insects. To the rest of the fresh leaves, she added some dry ones and carefully wove stems around them, forming them into a thick, elongated bundle.

She took the hand drill out of her pocket, and after a few seconds of turning the handle in the bundle of leaves, she ignited a small spark. In normal circumstances she would light a fire from the spark, but in her competition with the other tracker, this would be risky. Instead, she attached the smoldering ember to the bundle of leaves she had created and blew on it. The dry leaves ignited immediately, but the fresh moist ones prevented the formation of a visible flame.

The herbs gave off thick smoke. Even though it was twilight, and impossible to see the smoke even from a few meters away, Racheli was not taking any chances. She went into a dense bush that dispersed the smoke and only then, concealed, she passed the smoking bundle all around her body. This would neutralize any animal’s keen sense of smell so they could not determine her whereabouts in the night.

The last thing Racheli did before returning to her improvised bed was to create noise barriers. She placed uneven branches and crunchy leaves under a thin layer of sand at several vital crossing points in the surrounding terrain. If the opposing tracker tried to continue the game at night, she would know. She also obscured some of her prints, so that even if he got through the barriers, he wouldn’t be able to find her easily.

Half an hour had passed since she chose the place to stay for the night. Darkness fell on the thorn bushes that had now become her home. Racheli sat on the blanket in the bushes and happily ate the nourishment she had collected and the food she had brought with her. In Hukok, she thought to herself, the last lectures of the day would be concluding now. In an hour they would all meet for dinner and form a singing circle. If she had been in Hukok herself, she would surely be waiting for the evening summons. She had taken the book with her, but in the midst of the tracker battle it was unthinkable to use a light to read.

The wind blew and Racheli listened to the sounds of the evolving night. Hungry rodents left their burrows and sniffed the area nervously before going in search of food. Night birds replaced the day birds. Nocturnal insects began to make their voices heard. Racheli felt the calm and fatigue coming over her and she lay down on the blanket peacefully. She felt at home. The feeling reminded her of how different it was for her in the place that used to be her home. Her mother’s image came to her, and Racheli saw on her face the expression it wore at their last meeting.

She remembered how she had opened the door of the house a crack, as she always did, and slipped inside. Out of habit she moved forward without a sound, until she stood quietly between her mother and her sister, Osnat.

They jumped in the air in fear and surprise when they realized she was standing next to them, and both let out a cry. Racheli always derived a strange pleasure from this moment, but it was not mutual.

“I hate you doing that!” Osnat scolded. “Why can’t you come in like a normal person? You’ll end up giving someone a heart attack and killing them.” Her mother placed a hand on her chest and gasped. After a moment she approached her daughter and hugged her. “All right, the main thing is that you came,” she said quietly. “The main thing is that you came... I miss you so much, when will you finally come home?”

“Mom,” Racheli sighed, “I don’t live here anymore.”

“Where do you live?” Osnat asked, her breathing still not back to normal. “You can’t rent a house because you don’t have a job, you are not in a relationship, and all day you just play ‘Indian.’ ”

“Enough, Osnat,” the mother scolded her. “She just got here, why are you attacking her?”

“You should tell her everything now,” Osnat said. “Who knows when we will see her again. And don’t pretend everything’s fine, you know it breaks your heart.”

Racheli had been expecting the usual arguments and disagreements, but the pace of the talk surprised her. She usually was given a few hours grace. Maybe the fright of her sudden appearance had caused her sister to lash out.

“Mom?” Racheli looked to her.

“I love you so very much,” said her mother, and hugged her. “If you are all right, then I am as well.” Tears filled her eyes.

“Yes...” grumbled Osnat. “If you’re so all right, then why are you crying?”

Racheli saw the tears falling from her mother’s chin. “Mom,” she said quietly, “This is what I have chosen. I have never felt so at peace.”

“What happened to you?” Osnat burst in instead of the mother, whose tears were still streaming down her face. “Gifted, first in the class, prizes, excelling in the army... you received your military honor award from the hands of the president himself. Wherever you were, you were first. And then... and then... this!” she said, pointing to Racheli’s clothes. “Mom doesn’t know what to say when they ask what you do, do you know that!? Do you even know how to explain what it is you actually do?”

“Yes,” Racheli said and raised her eyes. “I do know. I feel alive, finally. I don’t need people to be proud of me and I don’t think about what Mom will say when they ask about me. I live and continue to learn and develop.”

“And how exactly are you developing!? You don’t even have a degree. If you love nature so much, why don’t you get a degree in biology?”

“What would I do with a degree in biology!?” Racheli snapped at her. “I know more about botany and zoology than they could ever dream of; what’s the point!?”

Her mother’s crying grew louder. Racheli fell silent and she looked down at the floor. “I came to tell you not to worry,” she said after a few moments. “I won’t be in touch for roughly three months…”

Racheli’s mother could barely formulate the question through her tears. “Wh…why?”

“I’m going into the forest for a few months, without equipment. No cell phone.”

Her mother sat down heavily on the kitchen chair. “How... how will you survive? What will you live on? What if someone attacks you? How could you let anyone know if something happens?”

“I’m skilled enough to make sure I am safe,” said Racheli. “My survival skills in the field have long been sharp enough. I should have done it years ago.”

The mother was silent. Her tears being the only thing heard in the otherwise quiet room.

“Why are you such an egotist?!” Osnat erupted. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to Mom? You’re destroying the family! You’re killing her! How did all this start? What trauma made you go crazy like this? You don’t need to go to the forest, you need psychological help. Just tell us and we’ll help. We’ll take you to...”

“You’ll help me!?” Racheli interrupted her. “If for the first time in my life I am stable... no. If for the first time in my life I’m at all alive and you can’t be happy for me, then you are the egotist! I will not live my life to make others happy. I’ll leave that to you – you can continue to be the ‘good’ girl.” Racheli realized too late what she had said and was quiet. The room was silent.

Her mother got up from the chair heavily and approached her. She hugged her and Racheli hugged her back. After a long moment she let go, moved away a little and took hold of Racheli’s hands and looked in her eyes. “Can you call once a week, or even once in two weeks to let me know you are all right?” she asked quietly.

Racheli slipped her hand away and gazed down at the floor, “I am not taking any equipment, no phone,” She reminded her in a whisper.

The stillness once again enveloped the three women. Racheli turned slowly, with a heaviness that was foreign to her. Without a word, she took her bag from the table and headed for the door. “I will wait every day to hear from you,” her mother called after her. “This is your choice.”

“Yes, it is my choice,” Racheli muttered to herself. Her eyes were fixed on the floor of the house that once, long ago, was her home. “My choice,” she said again as she opened the door.

Racheli left the house and stood at the entrance. She suddenly felt dizzy and sat down heavily on the stairs. She looked at the small garden that was once her vast kingdom.

She understood her sister. Throughout their childhood, Racheli was the successful child of the family. Their parents were so proud when she was accepted into the gifted class and brought home awards and certificates of honor. Osnat had struggled in the dim realm of average.

Racheli was the favorite topic of conversation for her parents, who at every opportunity told anyone willing to listen about their genius daughter – “Racheli joined the national program of the Ministry of Education for Youth who excel in mathematics... You know, she is first in the district in science!” But Racheli hated their talking about her. Every time they did, her body would stiffen. She grasped things easily and quickly, processed information speedily and loved to put her knowledge to practice, but her proud parents never understood how much the company of others bothered her. Most of all, Racheli enjoyed being alone and studying by herself.

She could communicate easily with the other children in the gifted class, who appreciated her abilities, which exceeded their own, but even being around them was an effort. Racheli never understood the emotional depth of those around her. Time alone with her books, was her favorite thing to do. Her sister interpreted Racheli’s tendency to isolate herself and her discomfort with emotions as being condescending, and believed that she, and only she, could sense the darkness in her sister’s heart.

The sound of footsteps interrupted Racheli’s thoughts. She listened to the rhythm and heaviness of step and knew that Yosef, Osnat’s husband, was approaching the door of the house. A few seconds later the door opened. Yosef looked at her for a few seconds, perhaps surprised that she was still there. He sat down next to her. Racheli said nothing.

“I heard you fighting from upstairs,” he finally said.

“I wasn’t fighting with anyone,” replied Racheli, who did not raise her gaze to look at him.

Yosef’s face softened. “No, I didn’t mean that you were fighting... just, uh…”

Racheli sighed.

“They really love you, you know. They just don’t understand why you left.”

“They don’t love me,” Racheli said almost in a whisper. “They love the other Racheli, the one they invented.”

Yosef looked at her with anguish. “Why do you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s the truth.” Racheli’s eyes flashed. “They don’t want who I am. They want the Racheli they thought I would be, the Racheli who had good grades and did everything right, and who should be locked away in some corporate office climbing up the ladder until I become the company CEO.”

“Nobody wants that. They just want you to be with them. They only want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Racheli said simply.” I’m happy in the woods. It’s my life. It’s my freedom. You know, even if I did everything they wanted, it wouldn’t be enough. It’s never enough. It never ends. The machine always wants more. It’s not enough that I make money – with this money I have to take the kids abroad three times a year, stay in a hotel and shop. Oh, and take out a mortgage to buy a big house and waste money on clothing and makeup, and make sure that every morning my shoes match my jewelry and...”

Racheli stopped. Suddenly she realized that she was accurately describing Osnat and Yosef’s life. She gave him a quick look. His eyes were open wide. Was he offended? She wasn’t sure.

“You talk about it like it’s a crime. Why is it bad if it does people good?”

Their rules are so complicated, Racheli thought to herself. She had never cracked their complex code of communication. Any other day she wouldn’t have continued the discussion, since no one ever listens. But the conversation with her mother and sister had left her too exhausted to stop herself.

“You know what?” She finally said. “They don’t think.”

“Who, Racheli? What are you talking about?”

“About their lives – about the shoes that match the dress, and no one knows why.”

“What’s with you, Racheli?” Yosef said, forcing a laugh. “You haven’t worn a dress in years, who are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about all of you.” Everything she hadn’t dared to say out loud, fearing she’d hurt her mother and sister, now poured out of her. It was precisely the comfortable, friendly character of Yosef’s that had broken down the barriers that held her back, the walls she had constructed.

“What do you all think? That you’ll be happy because the shoes match the dress? That vacations abroad are better than camping out in a tent? What do you think, Yosef? You think a bigger, fancy house is better for a family than a simple small one? And if not, then why? Why work so hard, waste your life, spend it in crowded offices like worker ants just so you can buy more things you don’t need? I’ll tell you why!” She continued without waiting for an answer. “There is only one reason: to look good in other people's eyes.”

“Come on, Racheli, really,” replied Yosef with a forgiving smile. “Not everyone is stupid. Your sister doesn’t use makeup to look good for me or other people, it just makes her feel good about herself.”

Racheli felt the rage climbing up her back. She wasn’t angry with Yosef, not even with her sister. She was angry with herself. Why am I even talking about this? She thought. I know the rules. Why don’t you talk to him about his job, investments, politics? Why are you forcing him into having a conversation they don’t ever have in a language they don’t speak?

“Feel good about herself? Really?” She finally said. “And it’s only a coincidence that what makes her feel good about herself is using makeup that her friends and colleagues like, and removing the hair from under the armpit and her legs like everyone else? And is it only coincidence that all women of the South Ndebele tribe in Africa put coils around their necks, and elsewhere women tattoo a dot on their foreheads? Is it all by chance? Just by chance everyone is comfortable with what is accepted in their own society? That’s how it happens!? Really, Yosef…you actually believe a woman who removes the hair from her legs and chooses matching earrings asks herself why she is doing it? What does that do for her? What does that do for her society? Does it make her a better person or a happier one? Does it…”

Racheli went silent. Once she managed to stop the outpouring of words, she understood her mistake – a few sentences too late.

She could already read on Yosef’s face the conversation he would be having with her sister that evening. She imagined the tongue clacking between them and the nerves…and the sadness.

Yosef was also silent, but then he tried again. An optimistic man, she thought. Not for a moment, does he stop believing.

“And you people don’t care how you look?” He asked. “Are you more righteous than everybody else?”

“Oh, no. My people are the worst, just try to come into a singing circle wearing a suit or jeans and you’d understand...”

Yosef laughed. “They sound just about as bad as everyone else. Why do you say they’re the worst?”

“Because they’re also lazy.”

Now they both laughed.

“They do their utmost not to do anything; most of them are lazy bums. Just riding the machine.”

“What!? What machine?” Queried Yosef.

Racheli stopped for a moment and gathered her thoughts. “The machine is the desire to look good for others,” she began slowly. “As much as I deride it, it is an excellent thing. It creates social order; it motivates people to achieve more. All in all, it’s what’s behind our wealth and well-being. Think about it. Just a hundred years ago, people here were hungry for bread, women had no rights, most people didn’t know how to read and most children didn’t live to be twenty. My ‘people,’ as you call them, can afford to be lazy because we live in the most abundant period ever, and we are at such a period thanks to the machine whose fuel is your desire to look good. More clothes, more cars, more houses, more food... more and more production, more excess you can take without anyone lacking for anything. This is your machine that my friends are simply riding.”

She looked at Yosef, who gazed towards the stairs leading to the door. He’s trying to be polite, she thought. You’ve lost him. Yosef looked up at her, again smiling. “Maybe you’ll come inside?” He said, probably hoping she’d bring inside some of the smiles they shared in the conversation between them. Racheli nodded her head in an unclear response. Why go in there again, she thought. Just to be a hypocrite and finish with a good feeling?

Yosef got up and went into the house. He no doubt expected her to come in after him, but Racheli took advantage of the moment. She left the yard and went out to the street and then slipped into a side street, carrying her failure with her – the failure of words and actions, the failure to do the ‘right thing’: to smile, nod, and giggle; the failure to make them feel smart and righteous; the failure to restrain herself and not speak – heaven forbid – about anything significant or consequential to her.

Racheli lay among the Rhamnus bushes. The wind blew gently through them, carrying fragments of memory with it. She listened to the sounds of the night that embraced and calmed her spirit. Now more than ever she needed the feel of Asaf’s comforting body or a conversation with Merav. She looked up at the stars whose light peeked through the branches. The leaves of the bush fluttered slowly, and in the quiet and calm surroundings, she sank into a deep, pleasant sleep.

Chapter 10

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN ALL YEAR ROUND – BREATHE IN THE WINDS AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME

In her dreams, asleep between the Rhamnus bushes and the traps she had set for any possible intruder, Racheli listened again to the circling birds and heard people at the spring waters. In her dreams she again saw him brandishing the knife and aiming the flint edge straight at his heart…

Racheli had felt safe when she came into the forest empty-handed. She had spent weeks in the woods before, and knew she could handle it. The difficulty would be more spiritual and mental than physical. She already knew where to set up camp. The most important thing was a water source. About halfway up the Carmel mountain was a spring that people used to bathe in from time to time, but only a few knew that a few hundred meters below it, in the thick of the forest, flowed another, smaller spring. Racheli came across it by chance when she was wandering in the forest, and immediately knew that this was the place she would choose.

The first days in the forest are the easiest, since they are full of action. She searched and found some flint stones and began to break them into the tools she would need. She prepared blades and fashioned a small axe, as well as a hand drill she would use to start a fire. After that, she broke branches and prepared a small base under which the fire would burn and on top of which she would lay leaves and branches to scatter the smoke, so that the fire would not give off a clear sign of her location.

Nearby, she built a shelter for sleeping. It was about two meters high, and made of branches tied together with spools of climbing vines and bark fibers. For the first two days, she was content with this ramshackle structure, but later she improved and strengthened it until it was a pleasant and comfortable place, ventilated by the wind on hot days and warmed by the fire when it was cold. In a few days, she was free to deal with foraging for food. At first, she collected plants from the area, mainly pine nuts from the pine cones, but the amount of pine nuts that can be collected in a given area is relatively small, and green plants do not provide enough for the body.

Surviving in the forest for a few months is not difficult for those with the skills for it. The real challenge, she knew, is exiting the woods after a few months when you weigh more than you did when you entered. The first days are actually fasting days. These are usually days of constant movement, when you eat less than a thousand calories a day. And since Racheli had not brought suitable seedlings, forestry was not on the agenda for the first few weeks. The only significant option for extra calories was hunting.

When building and setting traps, Racheli knew, you need to know and understand the movements of animals in the area; you have to know which animal is passing by and when. Animals move on fixed routes, and first, tracking is required to identify their paths – and to identify the animals themselves. An animal too large will break a trap set to capture a smaller animal. An animal that is too small will eat the bait in a trap set for a larger animal, and will not be caught. And because most traps require bait, the appropriate food must be collected, food that will attract the specific animal for which the trap is set, and not others.

When an animal is captured, no part of it is wasted. The skin is processed over the fire for hours, the sinews are turned into useful threads and the bones made into useful tools.

Unskilled people fear the fasting phase. They are afraid that they will become frail and weak, unfocused and nervous, and will not be able to function. But in practice, fasting makes people more focused, and their every action becomes sharper and more effective. Most people find that within two days of fasting the mind is clearer and quicker and the senses are sharper. In actual fact, even a thin person has enough fat to function without food for weeks. Fasting is sometimes unpleasant, but it is not harmful and often, even beneficial. Anyone who has experienced fasting sometimes misses the sharp feeling they had while fasting.

Racheli broke her fast with a female porcupine she trapped on her fifth day in the forest. Despite the feeling of relief, she had a hard time eating it. Porcupines are a monogamous animal – they live in pairs, remain loyal to each other for years and shower each other with warmth and affection. Racheli knew that the next night the male would go out and search for the lost female mate and would not find her. He would continue looking for her sadly every night for months. Racheli knew she could set a trap for the male by using the female’s scent to attract him, but she could not do it. It seemed to her that she had already caused him quite a bit of suffering.

After a week and a half, Racheli’s shelter area was almost completely ready: a tiny, pleasant village, hidden in the forest. After two weeks she managed to snare a large wild boar in one of the six large traps she had made. The boar was injured and had survived until she arrived, and she had to kill it with the bayonet she had prepared – a heavy stick with a grooved head, to which she tied a sharp, thin flint with sinews. The beast had a lot of meat and fat. It was not possible to eat all of it at one sitting, so for hours into the night she devoted herself to the effort of smoking the meat, thus both preserving it and avoiding parasites. Food, at this stage, was no longer a problem. In fact, for most of her stay in the forest, Racheli enjoyed an abundance of the smoked boar meat. Sometimes, when she was not in the forest, she would forget to eat and only realize in the evening that she hadn’t eaten anything all day; but here, in the forest she made certain to eat well – her goal was to leave the forest heavier than when she entered. The meat, the pine nuts and later also the acorn flour that she prepared and stored, provided her with most of the calories her body needed, while the green plants were a major source of vitamins, minerals and fiber.

Racheli kept herself busy doing different tasks every day: weaving baskets, maintaining the shelter, gathering wood, making sure the traps were ready, processing the skins into clothes and blankets, and more. But in a short time, it was mainly maintenance of what she had already done, and that required only a few hours each day. She listened to the birds – the intelligence wing of the forest. When a bird detects a threat, it emits a warning signal. The birds close by hear it and are alarmed, and they repeat the signal, as do the birds farther away. In that way, the warning spreads like the ripples from a stone thrown into the water. A skilled listener can identify the source of the call according to the spread of the circles, as well as identify the type of warning; birds make different sounds if it is a snake, a man or a falcon. For a random hiker in the woods, the chirping of the birds is merely a pleasant background sound. To trained ears it is a rich and accurate network of information. Racheli became knowledgeable of her surroundings more and more every day, and her attachment to it grew deeper. Through her probing the area she got to know the animals around where she had set up camp. She gave a name to each one and knew their relationships and their habits. When she ate one of them, she always knew which one it was, and felt sorrow for the loss his friends experienced. The tracks became a way to keep up to date with the well-being of her friends – who was courting who, who had pups, who was fighting with whom.

And yet, despite all the wealth around her, after about a month and a half Racheli began to struggle with loneliness. Her need for a human voice was growing. She missed Asaf and Merav, and found herself also yearning for her books and the voice of the narrator who spoke to her from them. She even missed the meetings of the Garden Keepers, which were so unnecessary in her eyes.

If not for meditation, dealing with the loneliness would have been much more difficult for her.

Indeed, she spent more and more hours meditating. When she started the practice, Racheli hated meditation. She found the spiritual exercises of the Garden Keepers to be childish nonsense. If it weren’t for meeting Gila, she probably would have felt the same way now – but Gila had talked about meditation as training the mind, a means of becoming quicker and sharper, and being able to learn faster. She knew how to lure Racheli – who realized only here, in the forest, that she had taken the bait. To capture an animal, you need to know it and the paths it takes. You need to know which temptation it will not be able to resist. And that’s exactly what Gila did. In her pleasant way, she was an expert in traps. Racheli was an animal who loved to learn and develop, and the promise of a sharper and more focused mind was a temptation she could not resist. From the moment she entered the trap, her feelings changed and remained the same even after it was clear that it was a trap. The weeks in the forest became a constant meditation practice, which continued while she walked, ate or worked, and before long, even while she slept.

The sounds of danger had reached her in the morning. First the circling birds, whose chirping landed like the first wave of autumn: there were humans at the spring. But the birds sounded more disturbed than usual. Racheli was deep in meditation when the voices reached her, and she slowly opened her eyes. The birds became more and more agitated. Something unusual was happening at the spring, she realized. Something violent.

She rose quickly, picked up the hand ax and the short spear and started running up the mountain. Her movements were swift and silent, her feet knew the route and found their place on the rocks and branches while her ears scanned the surroundings. In minutes she had reached the spring and peered out from among branches around it. A small boy and a woman were on the ground crying. Two men held a third man, who had blood pouring out of his neck. Another was standing in front of him with a knife in his hand.

He raised the knife threateningly. The woman moaned and pulled the boy to her. And Racheli, without thinking, burst from the bushes with a growl.

Even later, she never quite understood why she growled. Maybe the months that had passed without speaking turned the first sound that came from her throat into an animalistic snarl. Perhaps the sight of men gory with blood had brought the beast out of her.

The knife stopped in midair. All eyes turned to her – except for the eyes of the bleeding man, who held up his arms to ward off the raised knife.

Months of walking, running, climbing and tying sheathes of branches together had removed every ounce of fat from Racheli’s body. Her hair was wild, her body clothed in the pigskins she had processed. In her left hand she held an ax, and in her right hand the short spear, cocked back and ready to throw. Her eyes flashed. She aimed the spear straight at the heart of the man who held the knife, and was closest to her, as she had done to the wild pig she had killed. Everything moved in slow motion; each breath took an eternity. Her hands moved to make the throw – but the spear did not leave them. The attacking men were frightened by this figure of a demon that had emerged from the forest as if out of a nightmare and they quickly fled. A moment later, the sound of an engine and the squeal of tires were heard.

The woman got to her feet and ran to the wounded man, who had fallen to the ground, bleeding. “We just wanted some quiet,” the woman cried. “We just wanted some quiet!”

Racheli stood and looked at her. After a moment she lowered the spear. Yelling won’t help, she thought. She slowly approached the man and inspected the wound on his neck. His blood flowed to the ground and he was moaning in pain. Racheli knelt over him, pumped her fist, placed it hard on the wound, resting her weight on him. The man screamed.

“What are you doing!?” the woman shouted. “You will kill him!”

Racheli looked at her indifferently. The man was still writhing under her.

“Listen well,” she said simply. “Go get your bag. Take out your phone and call. You call the Medical Rescue service first and then the police. You give them this exact location, and tell them it’s a life and death emergency and that he doesn’t have much time. Is that clear?”

The woman nodded and went to her bag. Racheli looked again at the wound. The bleeding had almost stopped. That was a good sign. The man kept moaning in pain, and that too, was encouraging. It looked like he hadn’t lost much blood yet. Racheli lifted her head. She saw the woman still talking on the phone. And she saw the boy, who was hiding behind a bush staring at her in fear, and her heart sunk in her chest.

The woman approached her. “They’ll be here in ten minutes,” she said. “And... I am sorry for yelling at you. Thank you, thank you.”

Racheli was still scrutinizing the man’s wound. “He will make it,” she said. “Applying pressure to the wound works; it stops the blood leaking from the arteries. Go to the boy.”

The bird calls told her of the approaching vehicle before the siren’s whistle confirmed its arrival. Racheli grabbed the woman’s hand, pressed it to the man’s wound and quickly disappeared into the thicket. She had one more week left in the forest, and she intended to finish it alone. The woman and the man who survived never learned who she was, and most people who heard the story did not believe the description of the fierce woman who emerged like an avenging animal from the forest. But the image of her holding the spear continued to haunt those who had seen her that morning, bursting out dirty and armed from among the trees.

OHR

Chapter 11

NAZIR

Tonight, I again dreamt of Nazir.

From the position of the blurry moon above me, I estimated that it was about two o’clock in the morning. Around me, quietly sleeping, were the other Zaharonim in my new unit. Ido’s unit had been disbanded; too many of the men had been injured or killed. My new unit, of course, took part in the transport and carrying of heavy equipment, and everyone was exhausted and deep in sleep. The hours of sleep on the mountain are vital for the well-being of the men, to allow their bodies to recover and avoid unnecessary injuries. I felt the fatigue, my body still needing to heal, but Nazir’s eyes glowed in the dark and woke me.

The first time I saw those eyes glowing in the dark was when we were near his house at night. I was in the second year of the Hell. He sat inside a small shelter guarding his family’s field. We encountered him on our way back from the Mizra rubble in the Jezreel Valley. For two days we had been in the valley stopping up the wells to thin out the population around the mountain and make it easier for us to defend.

When we noticed him this time, we stopped. The Commander ordered us with hand signals to sneak up on him from three directions. We were well practiced, and he did not notice the rope we draped around his neck. He was sitting quietly, his fingers playing in the brown valley soil, his black eyes fixed on what he was doing.

We fell on him with precision, sealing his mouth and holding him firmly in our grip with moves that we had been trained to carry out. About fifty meters from us there were some people sitting and talking in a small circle. They heard nothing. Seizing Nazir took only a few seconds. He hadn’t been able to utter a sound; he was tightly bound and his mouth covered tightly with three layers of cloth. We took a moment to wipe away our tracks and continued on our way, leaving no signs of our ever having been there.

Nazir wept all the way to the mountain. We heard him whimpering through the gag on his mouth as we carried him; his tears wetting our shoulders. I understood him. He believed we would do to him exactly what they would do to us if they abducted us. He feared the worst.

A few years ago, when the Easterners came upon some families hiding in the Sharon area, they brought them to their front-line position, near the mountain. For two days we could hear the screams. The Easterners kept them alive so we could hear them, so we would know what awaits us.

And we heard... we listened with every fiber of our being, better than they knew. All of us – the entire mountain – gathered to listen.

Every shelter and every unit of Zaharonim was allocated a specific amount of time to reach the nearest point on the eastern front of our defense circle. The Easterners did not know where we were and what we were doing; they couldn’t hear anything with the tortured screams in the background, but for two days everyone on the mountain – Zaharonim, women and children – went to their positions, and for a few minutes heard the screams and the piteous begging. We all heard, and the message we knew well became even clearer: No one on the mountain falls captive. No one. A Zaharon about to be captured saves the last bullet for himself. The women, the final line of defense on the mountain, save the last bullet for themselves, to avoid capture and the screaming. Before taking their own lives, they would take care of the children…

On the mountain, no one is taken captive.

The way the Easterners dealt with captives was exactly how Nazir expected us to deal with him.

Down from the mountain we speak only in our own language. To maintain the advantage of surprise, the enemy must not know we are capable of understanding them. Nazir was shocked when he heard us speaking Arabic. He immediately started begging for his life. In tears he asked us to kill him without pain. He said he hated Sa’id, he curses him.

Nazir was mistaken about how he would be treated, of course. No one tortured him and no one raised a hand to him. On the contrary, he got food and water, and was well taken care of.

My area of concentration is the study of the Easterners. In my specialization group we learn to speak their dialect without an accent. We study their humor, expressions, social structure, the subtleties of meaning, their history, and their military infrastructure. We use different methods to master their ways, and one of them is to pick up – every few months – a Southerner to teach us.

Along with six other Zaharonim in my specialization group, I was responsible for Nazir, as we were the youngest in the group and in the Hell stage of our training. “Nothing will happen to you,” I told Nazir. I knew my pronunciation wasn’t perfect. The “ayin” wasn’t guttural enough. In the group they always told me that, and I tried to improve it without success.

“Please, sir, please,” cried Nazir. “I hate Sa’id; I was only guarding our field. Please, sir, tell them, please.”

“Would you like something to eat?”

Nazir looked at me, surprised.

Our eyes met. Along with his fear, a spark of curiosity was ignited.

We guarded him in pairs, one tied to him and the other a step away. A third was within shouting distance, just in case. That’s how we held our Easterners specialization group meetings, all of us sitting and talking with Nazir.

In time, however, it became clear that Nazir had not brought us any new information; almost everything he said we had learned either from previous “teachers” or our own observations from forays into the field.

But even if Nazir had no great value to the group, he had value for me. We would talk all the time. We were all forbidden, of course, to reveal to him anything about the mountain, but I saw his black eyes growing wide again and again in wonder as he looked around. In the society where he grew up and lived his whole life, women were always completely covered. He never saw a woman’s bare breast or the hair over their genitals. When he observed our naked women taking refuge from the blazing sun in the shade while at work, he told me we mistreated our ‘servant’ women. He lowered his gaze, but continued to sneak looks at them from time to time. Only after a week on the mountain did he raise his head and look at them openly and without fear.

Like all the teachers before him, the plant beds astonished him; he had never seen such an agricultural method. In the first few days, all the guards spoke to him and asked him questions, but after a week their interest in him waned, and then he and I had more time to talk. Nazir would correct me every time I made an error with the accent. “I am your teacher,” he would say proudly. After a few days, I started calling him “Esteemed teacher.” He took great pride in that. Among the Easterners, it is an honorary title for those who know to read and write, and is reserved almost solely for religious scholars.

We laughed together often and sang children’s songs and work songs of the Easterners, and Nazir told me about his parents’ house. He was the second born in a family of five children. Seven brothers and sisters had died of illnesses in their childhood, which is common among the Easterners. He survived.

More than once, they tried to recruit him to fight against the Zaharonim, he said, but his father bribed Sa’id’s people with the little he had, and Nazir was spared.

Nazir admired his father and knew he had given everything he had to save him. He also talked a lot about his younger siblings, who he took care of after his mother died giving birth to his youngest sister, Shahida. She was his favorite, he told me, and used to sleep with him in the same bed because of her fear of the night. On the nights he guarded the field, she lay awake waiting for him. “She would stroke my face like this,” he said, moving his hand gently over the soft stubble of his beard, “…and she would fall asleep in my arms.” Once he described to me how Shahida would dance for the family. “For my brothers, my sisters, father…all of us. We would roll about laughing.” Then he laughed and imitated her awkward movements.

After his mother died, he told me, his father almost never hugged them anymore – and then suddenly, after the dance, he spread his arms wide, and Shahida ran to him and hugged him.

I looked at Nazir and saw the tears fall from his eyes. I lowered my gaze. Only then did I realize I was crying too, and I was ashamed. “You know,” he said in a whisper after a moment of silence, “They will have to buy me a wife soon. Soon I might have sons to work with me and with father.”

The territory that Sa’id and his soldiers controlled was immense, and grew even more after he murdered Hativ and united the Easterners factions. A few years after he came to power, he also defeated the Northerners in several brilliant battles, and became even stronger. The Easterners feared and respected him, and he ruled them with an iron hand and fed them his hatred for the inhabitants of the mountain. The Southerners and Desert Dwellers – the desert dwellers call us “dogs,” but the Easterners call us the “slaves of women.” The fact that almost all our leadership was female was to them a humiliation and a sign of inferiority that could only lead to disaster.

We saw it differently, of course. Each shelter’s mother sent a male or female representative to the assembly that governed the mountain. Since most of the men were in the Zaharonim military units, the government was almost all female. From a young age we took pride in what we deemed to be the source of our power: we had no internal revolts or conflicts, so we could learn and make progress quickly. We were always told that the Zaharonim know what they are training for and what they aspire to. This was our advantage over our enemies, who almost always greatly outnumbered us.

I was silent when Nazir asked me to tell Shahida he loves her. It was clear I would never meet her, and if I did, it would be behind the barrel of a loaded gun.

I remained silent, but Nazir did not. “I am your teacher,” he whispered to me in the darkness. “I correct you; I answer your questions, I sing songs with you. Do what I ask of you; go to Shahida.”

I said nothing. What answer could I have given him…?

Over and over, I can picture the day we took him to the training field. He sang on the way there quietly, but this time I did not sing with him. I brought a shovel to dig with, but he did not suspect. I asked to be the one to shoot him and got permission. Everyone understood. He sat and ate the meat I had brought for him. For days I hadn’t eaten my meat dishes or sweets. I kept them for him. He ate happily. I held the gun and I waited. The other Zaharonim didn’t look; everyone liked Nazir.

I shot at close range. Blood and bits of brain splattered on my face. He fell back slowly, his dead eyes looking straight into mine. I did not cry. I continued looking into his eyes even after the others had begun to dig.

At night he still stares at me with his dark eyes. In my dreams he is looking at me and I am silent. His chattering mouth now utters not a word... The other Zaharonim around me are asleep and I lay here awake, my eyes wide open. On this night too, I see his eyes glaring at me in the darkness.

Chapter 12

RA’ASH – NOISE

The rumors started in stealth training. Our stealth training is called “Whip the Bear.” I do not know why. The commanders bring the guard dogs to the grove; we are given the plan and prepare to sneak up on them. Stealth begins with prior preparation: one has to obscure one’s odor and appearance, smear the body with soil and leaves suitable for the terrain, and alter the contours of the face with mud.

Sneaking up on dogs is particularly difficult. When I first started the training, Ido told us that they could hear our hearts beating. Today, after lots of training, we can do it easily, operating on automatic pilot. And yet, I still have scars on my body from the bites I received in Hell training. That very day I wanted them to bite me. I wanted my Hannah to bandage my wounds gently and cry, showering me with her pity.

We advanced towards the dogs slowly, in complete silence. Every now and then one of the animals would raise his head and look around with concern, and we froze. The hardest part of “Whip the Bear” is the last few meters.

Two meters away from the dogs, the movement is excruciatingly slow. This is the most difficult movement also from the physical point of view. We leave a trail of sweat drops behind us along the last few meters. The extreme effort only ends when you reach jumping distance and stop. We all leap together and grab their jaws, simulating with a stick the cutting motion of a knife. The dogs have been tamed. They lie down as they were trained to do and stop moving.

The rumors reached me during the break. “Did you hear what happened in the southern Zohar?” Alex asked me. “No,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“Are you serious!? They say there was a surprise attack there, the Southerners fell upon them in full force, along with Desert Dwellers.”

“With the Desert Dwellers?!” I was stunned. “The Southerners hate the Desert Dwellers!”

“They hate us more.”

“And what happened?”

“Everyone says something different,” said Alex, looking down at the ground. “I heard from someone that they burned everyone and everything and there’s nothing left there. Others are saying that the Southerners were beaten and fled.”

“The council must know what happened,” I said. “They’re in contact with them.”

Alex nodded. “They’ll probably make an announcement soon,” he said and fell silent.

There was no announcement. Someone came and called Sassi to the command post.

“If they’re calling up all the heads of the units it’s serious,” Alex whispered to me. “When Sassi returns we will know exactly what’s happening.”

But Sassi did not return.

Not that day and not the next morning.

He arrived at a brisk walk just before noon and called everyone together.

He stood on a mound of dirt in front of us and surveyed us, his face lined with gritty sweat.

Everyone was silent. “The Southern Zaharonim are in great danger,” he said immediately. “The Southerners launched the strongest attack we have seen to date in the two Zohar regions. The Southerners are aligning with the Desert Dwellers and being joined by a large force coming from Jordan.” A wave of apprehension spread through the Zaharonim. We had never encountered the Jordanians face to face, and the alliance between them and the Desert Dwellers surprised and troubled us. Possible explanations for the unexpected alliance passed between us quietly.

“They probably saw how much we were growing and got scared,” Alex whispered to me.

Sassi raised his hand for silence. “The Southern Zohar is facing disaster. They won’t last long,” he said. “For now, they are managing, but they are running out of ammunition. If we don’t act fast, the Southern Zohar will fall. The Easterners and Jordanians have arrived with large armies and huge ammunition reserves. The Southern Zohar does not have weapons and ammunition on such a large scale. But after our raid on the naval forces, we do have them.

“The central council has made a decision based on counsel from the leadership of the two Zohars,” Sassi continued. “You will not like it. I don’t either.”

Now not a word was said. We all stood waiting. “We are calling up all the Zaharonim from the mountain. We will not allow the Southern Zohar to fall!”

Loud shouting started from all sides. “This is madness,” said Badir, his booming voice heard above all the others. “Shall we leave the mountain without Zaharonim to defend it!? Do we leave women here alone!?”

“Enough!” Sassi shouted. Everyone fell silent. “Yes, we will leave the mountain in the hands of the women. They are organized and know what to do. But this is the less problematic part.” He wiped his forehead and continued quietly. “The Southerners know we will come. They won’t let us go up from the sea to the mountains of Samaria. We will carry out a diversionary operation: we will stage an attack from the west, up the mountain, as they expect, but our main force will detour through the valley and go up to Ariel from the east, we will hit them from behind.”

“What!?” Badir bellowed out again. “How will we be able to fight after trudging all that distance? Who will deliver us supplies when we reach the battle ground?!”

“Whoever has a better solution is welcome to speak up now; but the Southern Zohar must not fall. We are ready to shine and if our light can save the Southern Zohar, that is what we shall do!”

“Yes, we are ready to shine!” This time Ro’i shouted out. “You know that very well. But to shine for something we can accomplish! How can we fight effectively after a week’s march, carrying all the food and water on our backs? How can we even take enough water for a week? And worst of all, how do we leave our mountain without Zaharonim to defend it? It is against the basic code! How do you know the enemy is not counting on us to do that? How do we know that this is not exactly the plan of the Easterners and that they are not also part of this alliance?”

Everyone looked to Sassi. “The Southerners, the Desert Dwellers and the Jordanians have gathered tremendous forces together to fight against the Southern Zohar,” he said, the sweat continuing to pour from his forehead. “The Southern Zohar forces have not yet fallen. They are still fighting. If we don’t save them, not only will they fall, but so will we. Don’t you realize that we are next!? This is our chance to attack them from behind and eliminate them – together with the Southern Zaharonim we may be able to do that. It makes sense. If we wait for them to attack, we will face defeat. There is no time to waste; our only chance is to hit them with everything we’ve got.”

“And breaking the basic code and leaving the mountain undefended, does that make sense?” Badir snapped back at him.

All eyes went back and forth between them. “Enough! Enough of this!” Sassi erupted. Badir backed down. “Do you think I like it? Does anyone have a better solution?”

No one spoke. “If you do have other ideas, you know the procedure. We are always looking for ideas. Come to me, and we will inform the command. Until that happens, we are preparing for an immediate departure.”

We had eight hours to get ready to leave: to prepare equipment, receive our orders and send out our scouts to study the terrain and commit it to memory, create agreed upon codes and signals, set up coordination and guidance, undergo an intelligence briefing and, in the process, have time to say goodbye to the mother shelter. No one worked the beds. The entire mountain was in motion. Some of the women transferred equipment from the central command to the Zaharonim, others helped with last-minute equipment repairs. Other groups took care of providing our nutrition before departure; from tomorrow on our food ration will be reduced. No one has started to establish the defense lines on the mountain – this will happen only when we leave. The command was undoubtedly finalizing the plans for defense in our absence.

When I went up in the afternoon to my shelter, and especially to see Hannah, the paths were bursting with activity. Swarms of people moved agilely from place to place. Despite the activity, the distress was palpable on the mountain. No one talked about the fear, but it overshadowed everything. In a few hours there would be no more Zaharonim on the mountain. The code had been broken. In a few hours food production would stop completely. In a few hours we would set off on a mission whose outcome was in doubt. Could we achieve victory? We know how to use stealth, operate in small units, and how to launch a surprise attack, but no one had any experience in what we needed to do in the upcoming campaign and in the battles that would follow. Both the men and the women knew this, and the goodbyes were different this time – longer and quieter, lasting a few more minutes, a few more seconds, for one more touch, one more look before leaving.

We left the mountain only half an hour after sunset, contrary to every procedure and training. It is a dangerous time to leave, since there is still some light, but we had to move forward as quickly as possible. Units went out throughout the first half of the night, at different times and from several points, to avoid ambushes or being spotted. They dispersed in different directions, so as to prevent the enemy from knowing the exact size of the force in case we were observed. Half the force will move along the coastal plain, go up from west to east, from the coastline to the mountains of Samaria, and then drive into the defenses of the Southerners, the Desert Dwellers, and the Jordanian forces. It was a deception to draw fire and attention. The other half of the force, including our unit, Sassi’s fighters, was the main attacking force. We will move east along the Jezreel Valley, continue south through the Jordan Valley and then go northwest, from the Jordan Valley to the Samarian Mountains – and surprise the enemy from behind.

It all depended on the element of surprise. A light vanguard force marched ahead of us and took up elevated positions. We moved in small groups with heavy equipment: weapons and ammunition, and of course food and water. There was only one significant spring of fresh water on the way, so it was necessary to make our water supply last for three full days. We moved along the edge of the Jezreel Valley and then the Jordan Valley, advancing only at night. We moved quickly, unlike the more casual pace in our hiking treks. We put our faith in the forward forces and our trust in luck. We walked in the ten hours of darkness without breaks and without a word. The sound of our steps and the murmur of our thoughts took the place of conversation. We had to move quickly, otherwise the water would run out before we reached the spring. Time was more important than caution.

Two soldiers always advanced ahead of the force quietly, in case the forward forces had missed a population or an ambush. Every time I heard the sound of my footsteps or that of the other Zaharonim, I shuddered. All my life I had been trained to listen for a careless force, one that makes noise – and now I was part of a careless force. I looked up into the black night. Who can hear me now out of the darkness? Since the flood there was no one to clean the streams and they became clogged, so most of the valley was flooded in winter and dry in summer. This is the reason that the population in the Jezreel Valley is very sparse. There are also almost no inhabitants along the Jordan Valley since the water pipes for irrigation and drinking fell out of use. Those who remained were further thinned out by the fighting. The Southerners and Easterners collect children as a form of taxes and turn them into soldiers.

The small size of the population worked in our favor. Dealing with the villagers didn’t take long, and the chance that someone would find out that the villages had been destroyed and send a message to the Southerners or Easterners was also improbable. It was clear that eventually the bodies would be discovered, but we hoped that would happen only after we reached the Southern Zohar. The traces of so many Zaharonim cannot be obscured; anyone who might have survived could have set off during the day and brought the message straight to the Southerners' army…and they would be waiting for us.

The routine of the movement was known to all of us: all night we move as fast as possible, during the day we take up positions and sleep. After the fast walk, the daylight does not disturb our sleep in the first hours of our respite. In the hours after our sleep, we prepare for departure, organizing and handling equipment. None of the Zaharonim liked the risks we were taking. They contradicted our every instinct, our education, our training, all the behaviors we had internalized during Hell training – but we had no choice.

The more we went on, the worse it became. There weren’t enough hours of darkness to move forward in, and hiking at night is slower in any case, so we walked until late at night and early in the morning, when the light was still dim. If the forward scouting force did not do their job properly and someone spotted us, word would get to the Southerners. And if they knew we were approaching from the east, it would be easy for them to attack us as we ascended the mountain laden with heavy equipment and tired. If that happened, they would not attack us immediately; the forward force would be targeted first. We would hear the firing before they reached us, but that would not help; without water supplies and with a large attack force bearing down on us from above, we wouldn’t last long.

The moon beamed down on us in all its brightness and I saw my shadow moving in the night walk. I felt how the noise of our marching feet penetrated the silence.

We moved forward. We knew that the Zaharonim responsible for the diversion were attacking the mountains from the west, but we did not know their situation. The Southerners know us well, they won’t be fooled by an attack; they know we always use the element of surprise, so our plan included several moves – diversion upon diversion, trap within trap.

The Zaharonim coming up from the direction of the coast that were responsible for the diversion would not fake an attack so as not to reveal that it was a trap; instead, they would try to strike a real blow. Also, within the framework of the diversion several groups will simultaneously sneak into key positions and try to ambush the enemy. It was clear to all of us that we were in for a tough fight – the enemy would expect stealth. Everyone knows that’s what we do. The Southerners, the Desert Dwellers and the Jordanians have large armies, and we knew that they would conceal units in the area to await those stealing up in silence. They will place snipers behind rocks, and the sound of gunfire will bring the other forces into the battle. Will the Zaharonim survive? Will they manage to break through? Did they already shine? Maybe they retreated and are now themselves under siege, desperately waiting for our attack?

Because of the need to move quickly, we could not carry much of the heavy weapons we took out of the armory, so most of those arms were in the hands of the Zaharonim carrying out the diversion. We knew that this was to their advantage, but only if they were to reach control positions. The thought kept running through our minds: Did they succeed? Are they still alive? And what is happening on the mountain? Are the women waiting in dread? Are they under attack and this very moment deciding not to be captured by the enemy? Have they pushed back the enemy? Is the mountain quiet? We knew that even if there was quiet on the mountain, the women were at the circles of defense. No one worked in the fields except for those on duty to irrigate the crops so they will survive.

And where is Hannah? Holding a rifle alongside her sisters at one of the circles of defense? Does she miss me? And maybe, just maybe, she is asking herself right now where I am.

These thoughts were like small knives. I wanted to talk, to hear what the other Zaharonim had to say, so I was greatly relieved when we finally reached Petza’el in the Jordan Valley. The weight on our backs no longer felt heavy; we were carrying the supplies needed for only another day and a half of walking – and we knew that we would reach the southern Zohar with barely any of it left.

There was a meeting point set at Petza’el, and the activity of our arrival allowed me some respite from my worries. Each unit sent Zaharonim on a defense mission. Sassi sent ten of us. We got to the mud houses among the ruins of the settlement at the end of the night, one of the last units to arrive.

The reconnaissance force had already gone ahead, and the main force prepared for sleep. Tomorrow we will climb a thousand meters and begin the decisive battle.

As we lay down to sleep, I heard the Zaharonim around me moving restlessly. They couldn’t fall asleep either. We had water for a day and a half, so we knew we would have enough for only a few hours of fighting. If we do not reach the springs of the southern Zohar within a day, there will be nothing left of the Zaharonim units. The Southerners only have to delay us for a few hours, and it will all be over. Afterwards, they will eventually defeat the diversionary force as well, which is surely already being besieged and may already have been eliminated…and the way to the mountain will be wide open.

For years we practiced tracking, stealth and coordinated movement. We are experts in explosives and gunfire, disciplined and strong – and yet the whole mountain enclave could fall because of water. The agricultural beds, the solar panels we collected from the remnants of the flood and rebuilt; everything will be lost because of a few drops of water. We have water only for a day and a half…and it could all collapse.

The strength of the Zaharonim does not come from distress or anxiety. None of us is afraid to shine – this is our overriding ambition. We do not move with a heavy heart nor with fatigue from lack of sleep or fear of battle – we are trained for this. But the power of the Zaharonim comes from complete silence as we advance – moving slowly and secretly. And this was not the case now – we did not have time for stealth. And we had not enough water. We knew that there were no Zaharonim on our mountain and that we had no idea what was happening to the units that came up from the other side of the mountains.

And so, as evening fell, our force of tired and deeply worried Zaharonim began moving west, towards the Southern Zaharonim. The sound of our steps – that anyone other than us would not even have noticed – pounded in our eardrums. Our anguish dominated everything else.

We began our climb with heavy hearts and too little water…

Chapter 13

WATER – MA’YIM

The ascent was difficult; the sweat poured out of us. Normally we could climb without difficulty, but after long days of walking, our bodies ached. While we were traversing the wadi we received word that the advance force had managed to decimate the sentinels on the mountain with knives. We circled the peaks and started to descend. When we reached the foothills of the Southern Zohar, we stopped. The commanders sent scouts to spy out the land. Despite the waiting and the fatigue, no one fell asleep; we smelled battle in the air. From here the stealth began. Our bodies knew the task ahead well. Our training took over and fatigue was pushed into the background. We split into three forces: the largest one would flank the Southern Zohar from the south and create a barrier to stop the retreat of the Southerners forces. A medium-size force, which included my unit, would come at the Southern Zohar from the north, and the smallest force would move from east to west and get to the Southern Zohar quickly.

Sassi’s hand signals called for gradual stealth and we took on our familiar roles, operating almost as automats, agile and ready. Sassi signaled to each group individually, and we advanced slowly and silently, taking up attack positions with each pause in case we were discovered.

The approach was going well. The enemy did not know that we were coming up from the Jordan Valley and were not prepared. They lay with their weapons by their side and talked among themselves loudly as we advanced around them; for them it was another day of calm for the lucky ones in the rear. They did not sense our movement, but on the hills and in the wadis, a network of thousands of Zaharonim spread out, moving in synchronization. Sassi checked the time – ten more minutes before the hour set for the attack. Me and five other Zaharonim reached our appointed position and waited. The others were still advancing. We won’t be ready in time, but we will have to attack anyway to keep to the set timetable.

Seven minutes to go.

I was ten meters from a small barrier, a fence of stones gathered from an abandoned field. On the sides and behind me I could see the staggered movements of our men. All the Zaharonim advanced to the positions where Sassi directed them.

Five minutes...

We could see the faces of the enemy unit before us. We divided the targets between us and I knew who I would be taking down. From this distance I knew my target had absolutely no chance.

Three minutes.

The dialect of the Southerners is different from that of the Easterners, but I understood that they were laughing loudly about the wife of one of the men: “Take some of the women when we go in,” shouted a raucous voice and there was an outburst of laughter. “They are used to control the dogs just like your woman controls you at home!”

Sassi signaled one minute to the attack.

We took aim. No one stirred. I could barely see the rest of the Zaharonim.

Sassi started counting down: ten, nine, eight... Before he had finished, shots were heard in the distance. We began shooting right away and we wiped out the group in front of us before they had time to grab their weapons. I ran forward, and shot the heads of bodies on the ground as I ran. I jumped over them and looked for a new holding position. Beyond the dead was a tent, and people were running in and out of it. Alex and I lay down and started shooting. We got dozens of them. In a few moments another thirty Zaharonim joined us. We got up and ran and fired – shooting at the fleeing enemy and at the Southerners on the ground. Some of them tried to reach an escape pathway, but some Zaharonim had taken positions there and fired on them. In a few minutes they would all be dead.

We paused the firing. After a moment Sassi came up behind us, his face flushed from running. He shouted “Forward! Their defense is collapsing, let’s take get them all!” He left ten Zaharonim behind to ensure the kill and the rest of us ran forward in small groups. Each time one group provided cover while the other was running, taking up positions and advancing again. This time we were going downhill with almost no weight on our backs, so we moved forward very quickly. We saw the Southern Zohar to our south and continued moving rapidly eastward, moving and alternately taking cover. We encountered no resistance from the Southerners, whose retreat had turned into hysterical fleeing. Only after five hours did we stop the shooting. All our water was gone. Our throats were parched. We could only manage for a few more hours without a new supply of water, so we positioned ourselves for defense. And then, suddenly, we saw them coming.

The sight made our hearts stop: an unknown column, coming from the south.

It was a column of women. They advanced quickly and we could hear them in the distance. They were talking and singing excitedly. Each woman carried a weapon and a backpack. We stood up from our shelters amazed – women of the Southern Zohar!

They passed among us, hugging and stroking our heads as was the custom in the Northern Zohar. We were far from our mountain, but in that moment, we felt at home. Their energy replenished ours – and for now, erased the fatigue from the long journey. That and the water, of course. They brought water! The Southern Zohar were in contact with the North, and they knew we were coming. They knew we were on the verge of dropping with thirst, and prepared jugs of water in advance. We drank and refurbished our supply. We hugged the women repeatedly. We thought that soon now we would enter the Southern Zohar. We didn’t yet know that we would not see these women again, that this was our final farewell. As we moved downhill, we heard shots coming from the west and south. From time to time, we saw in the distance people running in those directions. The decimated Southerners' forces were in mass retreat, heading south.

The Southerners had left weapons and ammunition behind and ran for their lives, but a large force of Zaharonim had deployed from the south towards the Southern Zohar to prevent their escape. They ran straight into the Zaharonim force, and the retreat became a mass slaughter. The order was simple: no survivors. We moved west, descending the mountain towards the coastal plain. To our surprise, we came across Zaharonim advancing up the mountain, in our direction. When we reached them, we understood that the troops that served as our diversionary force were more successful than we anticipated. Since they did not have to cover the great distance that we did, we had left with them the heavy weapons we had taken from the emergency storage depot. Armed with grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and mortars, the Zaharonim in the diversionary force had taken control of key positions and advanced from west to east, from the coastal plain to the mountains of Samaria. We realized at once that they would have reached the Southern Zohar in a few days even without us. In the end, the whole encirclement proved to be unnecessary.

We did not talk much, and continued the chase. Our orders were clear: to survey the area and make sure that not one of the Southerners, Desert Dwellers, or Jordanians was left alive. The task was complete only when we met up with the Zaharonim force that had deployed from the south.

Mission accomplished.

Although we were away from the mountain and had not yet entered the Southern Zohar, we were bursting with joy: it had worked! We were exhausted, and waiting for food and especially the sleep that reaching the Southern Zohar promised – sleep that our bodies and spirits so needed. Yet our excitement also overcame the exhaustion. After all the doubts and concerns, it had worked!

At least that’s what we thought.

Within half an hour the rumors started.

The commanders gathered for a short briefing, and in about half an hour they called their units together.

Our commander Sassi stood elevated on top of a large rock. We sat alert, looking up at him. In his face we saw something that had been shattered. “The Easterners,” he said in a broken voice, “took advantage of the situation and launched an all-out attack on the mountain. The women and children in the Northern Zohar did everything they could. They were able to hold them back for several days, but finally…they had to retreat to the tunnels.”

Sassi could not stop the torrent of words that erupted from us. He did not even try. People cursed, shouted, ranted, got up and wheeled about angrily. I sat looking at the deep furrows in Sassi’s face. In his eyes I saw he had given up trying to silence us or explain; he simply stopped trying to lead. He stared into space. What was he looking for? Perhaps through the haze of fatigue he was looking for his son, the boy who so resembled him, the son he always spoke about and counted the minutes for every training session to end – so he could get back to him.

I stood up.

“All right, so what!?” I shouted. “They are still alive, you understand? Maybe the Easterners didn’t break through the tunnels. Maybe they can still be saved!”

“True,” Sassi whispered. “There is a ray of hope in that, some light…”

Everyone was silent. “Zohar and her circle are with them,” he continued. A sigh of relief came from our throats, like air entering the lungs after a long underwater dive. “If Zohar is with them, there is a chance,” muttered someone. Alex looked at me. “She’s there, Ohr!” he said. “She’s there! And if she is, everything will be fine. She will know what to do, right?”

“Do you understand? If Zohar is there, her circle is also there,” I continued loudly, looking into the eyes of the Zaharonim around me.

“Sassi,” I asked, “what’s the plan?” He slowly raised his eyes to me and I smiled at him. He shuddered once and continued, his voice becoming stronger.

“We have defeated the Southerners, the Desert Dwellers and the Jordanians. We can assume that almost no soldier is left from their force. All their equipment and weapons remain here for the Southern Zohar. All the women, all the children and most of the Zaharonim of the Southern Zohar are alive. We succeeded in our mission. They will stay here to guard and to gather equipment for the defense of the Southern Zohar. We march directly to the Northern Zohar. There is no structured marching formation, no stealth, no advance force. If the Easterners got to the mountain, they obviously brought everything they could get their hands on and on the way killed every villager they could. You know how Sa’id works. After the blow we struck them at the emergency storage depot, I believe they are stretched to the limit, and that there will be no ambushes on the way. They are all on the mountain, and at any moment they could break into the tunnels. They know that besides the women and children, all the equipment, weapons and large food reserves are there. They are working hard to break through, and if they do, it’s all over.”

He paused, took a deep breath, and continued. “We set out now. No time for preparation or preplanning. In a few minutes they will arrive from the Southern Zohar to supply us with food and water. No heavy equipment on our backs, no heavy tools. We move as quickly as possible.”

There was silence, but the looks we exchanged showed that all was clear.

Sassi stopped speaking, and I realized I was still standing and spoke up. “Even if there is an ambush, we have no choice,” I said with a confidence that was far greater than what I felt. “We get to the mountain. We ascend in full force. We light up our mountain!”

All the Zaharonim got to their feet and brandished their guns. “We light up our mountain!” They roared. Sassi too, raised his weapon in the air.

Within a quarter of an hour, we were on our way. Any equipment or carrier not in working order was abandoned. The Zaharonim and the women of the Southern Zohar would see to them. We left the heavy weapons and took only water, food, grenades and launchers and set off towards our besieged mountain. Sassi led the way. Behind us were days of walking and climbing, and a battle that ended only an hour ago, and now we were on the move again. We had no forward force and took the shortest route back towards the mountain. We moved quickly, without thinking about the long days of walking ahead: determined Zaharonim winding their way towards their mountain with one thought in mind – liberate the Northern Zohar.

Chapter 14

HANNAH

There is a limit to the strength of the will, and in our Hell training they brought us to this limit. It was an important lesson. We learned it the hard way when we left the mountain for long days of action without sleep or rest. Familiarity with the limits of willpower prevents unnecessary mistakes and risks. After two days with no sleep, every sitting turns into instant slumber – and therefore, so as not to fall asleep, you keep moving. After three days like this, the judgment is impaired; the adrenaline is no longer enough to keep you going, and even while moving you begin making mistakes. After four days without sleep the hallucinations come, dream mixes with reality, and you cannot distinguish between them: objects begin talking, rocks begin to float and spirits call out to you from them. The fifth day without sleep you must not reach – not in training nor in battle. This is the point of no return: Brain damage stage.

We knew this, but we wanted to keep going. The commanders had to stop the columns by shouting, to make us rest.

They were right of course. It is impossible to walk from the mountains of Samaria to the Northern Zohar without resting. We had to stop along the way to keep the force in a fit state for combat. But the rest stops were too short. We were reaching the limits of our willpower, and every time we sat, we were instantly asleep. Even while walking we would sleep.

Of course they were wrong – the commanders. They were also exhausted – and afraid. Otherwise, they would not have made such a mistake. They would have realized that we could not just go straight up the mountain. The Easterners had already taken up the strong positions we had established there. Over the years we had turned the mountain into an impenetrable stronghold. We also knew that even we, who knew every centimeter on the mountain, would take a long time to break through each circle; by then they would have already broken through to the tunnels.

The Easterners would throw the bodies of women and children at us from above, and even if we win, there will be nothing left. Neither for us nor for them. Even if we reach the top in time, before they break into the tunnels, most of the Zaharonim will light the way and there will be no one left to protect the mountain.

I saw that our commanders were tired, utterly exhausted. For every hour of our walking, they also spent hours planning, observing and consulting. Their reserves of will ran out even before ours. Sassi’s face was already gaunt and hollow. Some of the other commanders still seemed confident, but even their eyes were beginning to blur.

We could not simply climb the mountain and face a rain of bullets; it would only make the Easterners accelerate their breakthrough efforts.

Our commanders were wrong. We were wrong. We were marching towards disaster.

Like everyone else, every time I sat down, I fell asleep and voices and images assailed me. I saw Hannah and Nazir. They waved at me and Ido burst out at me from their images. The sights, sounds and smells mingled; the mountain, the plant beds, the tunnels, the Southern Zohar and the Jordan Valley; it all became a glimmering blur.

We marched at a very fast pace, advancing scores of miles a day, moving together, each one immersed in his own private whirlwind of thoughts. Behind me stretched a trail of images from my last conversation with Hannah before leaving for the Southern Zohar. She sat on her mat with the thick cloths wrapped around her. I was afraid I wouldn’t find her; everyone was busy with preparations, and my Hannah never missed an opportunity to keep active. But she just sat there, cross-legged on the mat, staring down at the floor, not moving. A long shirt stretched from her shoulders to her hips.

She didn’t look up as I approached; she did not move even when I sat down in front of her. Not even when I held her, when I picked her up and sat her on my lap. She put her head on my shoulder and I felt her mons on my thigh. I started getting hard.

“I cannot lose another one,” she whispered almost soundlessly. I could barely hear her. “I can’t lose my beloved child, my darling angel.”

I pulled off her long shirt and she was naked before me. She still hadn’t looked at me. I saw her naked flesh, wrinkled from the passing years, and underneath the skin her strong muscles from the many hours of work in the beds. I looked at her drooping breasts and bare, furrowed flesh, and gazed lovingly at her long white hair. I lay my head in her lap, basking in the soft warmth, and let her hug and comfort me, as she always did.

She passed her hands over my head and rested her own head upon it. She always knew what I wanted, but I didn’t always know what she wanted. The age difference never bothered me. Despite the many years between us, at the end of every day I always wanted to return to her lap, and she received me with unconditional love, stroking my face and making sure I ate and rested, dressing my every wound and soothing every pain.

“I am pregnant,” she said quietly. “Soon my child will have his own child.”

I raised my head. She looked into my eyes for the first time.

“I thought you couldn’t anymore…”

“I thought so too,” answered Hannah and looked at me kindly. “I was sure I couldn’t, but that’s what happened.”

I was silent.

“Ohr,” she said, looking straight into my eyes, “I can’t…lose another one.”

I shuddered at the words. “My Hannah,” I said and put my hand on her cheek, “you know it’s forbidden to talk about things before the flood.”

“I can’t lose you,” said Hannah. She ignored me and continued. “I can’t lose you too. Not after Uriah and Nur.” Her eyes wandered and then came back and peered straight into mine. “If something happens to my child, I won’t survive.” I looked at her. Her long white hair, I thought, had once been colorful and curly. The wrinkled face I loved was once smooth and smiling.

She held my palm in both her hands and squeezed hard. “Please,” she said. “Please, my boy, my love, please, just this once... don’t go.”

“Enough...” I said. I lay my other hand on top of hers. “Your boy will be fine. I’ll come back to you, my Hannah. Don’t worry, I will come back to you.”

She hugged me, naked and crying, and rested her head on my shoulder. Her tears ran down my back. “Rotem,” she whispered in my ear through the veil of tears. “Before the flood, I was called Rotem.”

In the night of fatigue and walking, I returned again and again to the conversation with Hannah, recalling every word, every touch, every image. And between one repetition of the conversation and another, it suddenly dawned on me: they were wrong; the commanders were mistaken. Zaharonim battle plans come directly from the field. We were all taught to think like commanders since we were nine years old: formulate the problem, think of solutions, look for the weak points and find solutions for them as well. The specialization groups refined this tendency further and turned it into an art.

I quickened my pace until I reached Sassi.

“Ohr,” he said, surprised to see me. “Thank you for what you did back there; it was helpful.”

“I have an idea,” I said, ignoring his compliment. “And I want you to put it to the other commanders.”

Chapter 15

TO SHINE FOR A MOMENT

From the second I took command of the mission I spoke only Arabic. “Gun barrels need to be warmed,” I explained to the Zaharonim with me. Within two hours from when we stopped behind the hills of Ramot-Menashe, near the ruins of Yokne’am, everyone who specialized in Easterners came to me. Since none of the commanders specialized in Easterners, after Sassi pressured them, they put me in charge of the mission. I spoke to all the men who approached me in the Southerner dialect. I weeded out anyone who did not speak in a perfect accent. They all wanted to be accepted, but most of them I had to reject. I chose thirty-four men whose ethnic origin was not obvious, who could speak quickly in the Southerner dialect. I ordered them from that moment to speak only Arabic.

We captured a unit of Easterners on their way to the mountain; they had been sent out to bring supplies. Before we eliminated them, we took their clothes, which were soaked in their sweat and stench. “What if they ask for a password?” Yaron said to me in the Easterner’s dialect when I formed a circle for the briefing.

“When you come back from a hike to the mountain, do they ask for a password?” I said this loudly so everyone could hear. “A password would be necessary if we were in a civil war, if we spoke the same language or there was conflict among us. But we speak a different language than the Easterners; we have a different way of life and different customs. We don’t ask for a password – and they won’t either.”

“Says you,” said Nadav.

“Yes,” I answered. “And if I am wrong, we’ll all shine.”

I looked around at all of them. “Listen,” I sighed, “it’s clear to all that no one is coming back from this mission, yet there wasn’t one Southerner specialist who didn’t beg to join. There were Zaharonim I had to test three or four times because they insisted on being part of the mission even though they knew their accent wasn’t good enough. If we all die at the entrance to the mountain, the assault will begin immediately, and we will have lost only a few hours. But if we succeed in getting in, we will save days of gaining positions on the mountain. We all know how hard it is to defend these positions and how many men will have to shine so that we can hold on to them.” Everyone nodded. “Our actions in the coming hours will determine whether the women and children will survive or not. According to the latest report we received from the women, the Easterners are getting closer to breaking into the tunnels, and we all know what that means.” I saw the angry and apprehensive looks coming in my direction from the Zaharon circle. “That is why we all must adhere to the following rules,” I continued. “No matter what happens, do not react with tension or fear. If anyone looks at you, you want to make them assume you are tired out from too much walking.”

“That part won’t be hard,” said Nadav, and everyone laughed. He was trying to help me ease the tension, but I didn’t need any help, I just wanted them to listen.

“It will be difficult,” I answered. “Especially at the beginning, are the outer circle. We have never walked among them, and despite our fatigue, your pulse will race, you will be nervous and they will sense that.” I paused to let the words sink in and could almost hear their collective heartbeats. So much depended on this. “When we get to the situation where we are among them, try to get into their heads. Everything we learned in the training will take care of the rest.” I was silent for a moment. I looked at the circle of eyes staring at me and let them absorb everything I was saying.

“We have each other’s backs. If a comrade isn’t reacting right, tap him on the shoulder and tell him a Southerner joke, hum him a song or ask about his family – I don’t care what you do, but your responsibility is to be there for each other, without making it obvious. And don’t be afraid to curse, you know how much they curse. It will come out on its own if you put yourself into their mindset. If we succeed, the division of our tasks is clear, and everyone knows their role.”

I wanted to continue, there was more that I planned to say, but the fear in the eyes of the Zaharonim in the circle stopped me. They were asking for reassurance, a comforting word before we set off. I remembered Ido’s dull eyes when his entrails spilled out of his gut on the fence at the emergency storage depot.

“Getting there will be easier than you think,” I finally said. “We know their expressions, their songs and jokes. We have studied them for years. Just get into character and really hate the ‘dogs,’ really enjoy the songs, really want the victory.” They all nodded and I continued. “We know we won’t be coming back,” I said quietly, “and maybe we won’t have enough time to say this, so I suggest we say it now, all of us together.”

Everyone knew what I meant. There was no religion in the Southern and Northern zones. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were offensive in our eyes. We didn’t celebrate any religious holidays. Our only holidays were the short day and the short night, the women’s return to the shelter of the mother, the day at the end of Hell training and the holiday of the establishment of the vineyards. But under the surface there was religion. The religion of the Zaharonim was the desire to shine – to spread their glow for a glorious moment.

We knelt in a circle. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes. We whispered together what those who are privileged to shine intone: “All my desire is to shine for a moment. My whole life will have meaning and value if I have helped rays of light to rise and the sun to shine. For great light is composed of thousands of sparks that ignite for a brief moment. May my life be a spark of this light.”

Five minutes later we moved out. On the way down through Wadi Milik, I led everyone in songs of the Easterners, especially the military hymns.

We were heading for the mountain, but behind us, on the other side of the wadi, hidden from view, was the entire force of the Zaharonim watching, waiting for their opportunity to storm the mountain. We walked openly, in no set order. I put on the facecloth with the blue stripe of the commander of the force we had captured. We saw the Easterners guards in the distance and walked on. The Zaharonim with me fell silent. Tension and the stench of fear filled the air, overpowering even the smell of foreign sweat and body fat that rose from the Southerner clothes we wore. Can the guards smell our fear? I turned to Matan, who was beside me. “Say, do you know how dogs on the mountain fuck?” I asked out loud. Matan smiled, he knew the joke and understood my intention. His eyes sparkled and he answered, “The woman holds the leash and shoves a carrot up the dog’s ass.” The Zaharonim nearest us laughed out loud. The others joined in without hearing the joke. Normally, Southerner jokes wouldn’t make us smile, they were from a different culture, but now the laughter was real, the tension eased. We laughingly approached the gate where three Easterners were sitting, their guns glinting in the sunlight.

After we finished laughing, everyone started talking among themselves. “Make sure everyone fills up their water bags!” I commanded Matan sharply as we approached the Easterners. “And let no one wander off to look for the dogs’ women. Let them fill their water bags and be ready. Sa’id will be satisfied, but he will immediately send us away again.” I continued talking and looked around, feeling the hidden eyes from the other side of the wadi, in Ramot-Menashe. They sensed from a distance that we were at the moment of truth, but I knew we had passed that safely two minutes before, when we were laughing while walking, even as our weapons rattled near the guards, and when the soldiers in the upper positions didn’t even bother to show any interest in us.

They looked so young, mere children. The youngest about eight, I estimated, and the oldest no more than fourteen. The way they handled their weapons showed they were unskilled, unprofessional, untrained.

Did Sa’id’s forces pick them up just now, on the way to the mountain? I knew Sa’id always took risks, but only now did I realize how much of a gamble he had taken. We didn’t understand how he had gotten on the mountain after we eliminated most of his force, but now I realized that Sa’id had done what he always did: threw all the cards on the table – everything he had, without reserves, without planning for the next battle. That is how Sa’id seized power. It was how the Easterners defeated the Northerners, even though they were fewer in number.

And now, these were the first enemies who had ever managed to breach the mountain. Sa’id simply rounded up every male who could hold a weapon and left no one alive in the villages. He bet the whole jackpot. If he does not reach the food stores, hunger will spread in the Southerner villages like the plague and that will quickly end his rule. Within days they would find a successor, from within or without.

And there was another thing I realized: we had been afraid of them, afraid of the Southerner guards at the entrance and the cover positions above them, but these were children and we were adults, and they looked at us in fear. Once I understood that fact, everything changed. “Halt!” I shouted, and all the Zaharonim stopped and looked at me surprised. “Get over here, boy!” I shouted in the direction of the biggest one in the group of Southerners. “Come here at once!” He came running with fear in his eyes. “This is how you wait for dogs, you ape?!”

I shouted at him and hit him on the head. He whimpered and fell. All the other child soldiers rose to their feet and picked up their weapons. “Apes!” I hissed at them.

We kept on walking. The pace of the march taught me that the tension had subsided. Behind us I could sense a silent sigh of relief of those watching us from across the wadi. This feeling lasted only a hundred meters. That was when we saw the Southerner victory signpost to remind us where we were. We had seen it from the entrance, but our minds had not absorbed its full connotation. You could feel who in the group understood what he saw by their silence. One by one, the Zaharonim fell silent, and like droplets after rain, pre-planned conversations turned into an oppressive silence. I was among the last to grasp what had happened; I couldn’t understand why Matan, who was next to me, suddenly fell silent. Only from thirty meters away I suddenly grasped what my eyes had seen these last hundred meters: a dead woman’s naked body tied to a tree. We had no doubt what this was – the Easterners had not come with their own women.

The body was slightly swollen from decay, and her broken arms were bound at a bizarre angle behind the tree. Her legs were lifted up to expose her putrefying vagina – it had been cut and split open – to all who ascended the path. Do any of our Zaharonim know this woman? Is she a shelter sister of one of the men with me? Does anyone recognize the woman they loved, who was bound to this tree, her body shattered? How many other women were tied up like this on the mountain paths and how many will be tied up and tortured later? I tried to stop myself, but I couldn’t help imagining my Hannah tied to a tree. My whole body trembled. The report we received from the women in the tunnels said that only a few women had fallen in defending the mountain. Is this mangled body one of them? Maybe the report is not true? Are we trying to rescue dead bodies? The image of Hannah made my head explode in torment. Does every Zaharon now imagine his beloved or his mother tied to a tree, their bodies defiled?

When we were a few meters away, I moved faster and passed her before everyone else. I gathered the remnants of my hatred and fury in my mouth, which was dry from walking and rolled my fear into a thick lump and spat on the bare, dead body. I spat at it with all my might and shouted, “Dog whore!” The act did its job and woke up the others. We all spat on the body one by one and continued walking, talking among ourselves leisurely… but the sight of the woman tied to the tree would haunt all of us.

We passed the defense circles and reached the first beds.

I saw once more just how smart Sa’id was when I saw that the beds were undamaged. We expected destruction in every corner of the occupied mountain: uprooted plants and cut down trees, shattered shelters and crushed bushes. We did not appreciate Sa’id’s savvy enough. For now, there were no men to reap the crops of the Easterners, and by the time they returned to their villages most of the harvest would be ruined. This was why he left the beds intact: they were a source of food for the Easterners and their supply lines deep in enemy territory. In order to prevent the conquerors from destroying everything they encountered out of hatred, hunger or greed, Sa’id had given clear orders in advance on the matter and enforced them with severe punishment. The sight of the unharmed beds was a testament to his leadership. The walk on the mountain paths among the perfect beds was different from everything we had expected. The sight was more difficult than the destruction we had been prepared for. This was not the battlefield we expected; it was too much like home.

We found ourselves walking paths we used to walk serenely, places where we did not have to think about the enemy, where you were safe. And here we were in the heart of the enemy enclave, surrounded by hordes of Easterners. The wind played with the leaves in the beds. Pleasant, familiar smells rose in our nostrils and mixed with the tiredness, fear and anger we all felt. The walk in the relaxing and peaceful landscape of the mountain was more difficult and exhausting than the whistling of the bullets and firing from machine guns. We were home – and the enemy was sleeping in our rooms.

What surprised me most was that all the solar panels and electrical systems were left intact. For years we had been collecting solar panels that were undamaged from every abandoned city and devastated village. The specialization group that dealt with solar energy learned to refurbish the few remnants available to us to operate the water pumps and other systems so essential for life on the mountain. We were the only ones in the area who had developed the ability to pump water from the ground and circulate it – and slowly, with the knowledge gained in the specialization groups, we learned how to repair the electrical apparatus we gleaned from the ruins. How does Sa’id plan to operate these systems without experts from the specialization groups? Does he think he can figure them out and work them? Does he plan to use the expertise of the women in the tunnels?

More than anything, Sa’id’s power was evident on the faces of the Easterners walking the paths and from what they said. We walked through large groups of them. Most were easterners and we understood their words easily, but we also heard other dialects. Many spoke the northern dialect, and others the southern dialect. Some were smooth-faced children of seven or eight, who held the weapons they had received in a haphazard way, unaccustomed to their weight. Others walked with heavy steps; their faces wrinkled; they were too old to bear arms. This is how Sa’id’s forces broke through the fortified positions: a huge army had ascended the mountain like a cloud of locusts, consuming everything in their path.

As we got closer to the tunnels area we increased our pace. We are going to do this! We will succeed in the task. Today we will shine brightly!

Now we were just another group of Easterners moving on the mountain at the same time as the others. We did not attract attention. We could see from the distance the work that had been done trying to break through to the tunnels. Many hundreds of hands had stripped the mountain mantle from atop the tunnels. Around the quarry area, large blocks of rock once part of the cliff had been removed to make room for the men working the quarry.

As we approached the area, the raucous voices of the workers grew louder and from background noise it rose to a deafening volume. We were close to the main section of the dig and stopped for a consultation. Everyone around us was in motion, and apparently the sight of our group stopping and talking was noticed. A nearby Southerner with a commander’s face cloth approached. “Brother, what are you seeking?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I answered with an offhand, tired look. “We are on our way to Sa’id, we were just betting on where the dogs’ whores will come out.”

He was silent for moment. We all perked up, ready for action. My fingers felt for the trigger guard, but then a smile spread over his face that turned into a roaring laugh. He laid a hand on my shoulder. “When they come out, we’ll pluck ‘em like mushrooms off the ground,” he said laughing. “Mushrooms!”

I laughed too. Matan smiled “Fill a basket for me,” I replied, and he laughed again and continued on.

Finally, we reached the spot we had agreed on with headquarters and with the women on the mountain. The precise location was critical, but given the excavation done by the Southerner forces in the meantime, it took us a while to get our bearings. We lost almost an hour searching for it, but even when we found it, things kept going wrong: the cluster of boulders we should have used for cover was disturbed by the quarrying. We knew that in an open area we would not be able to hold out for even an hour, but to build a suitable fortified position would take days. We had not enough time for that.

We took our heavy backpacks off and loaded our weapons so that we could act immediately, if we had to, and began to position ourselves and our equipment. The division of labor was defined in advance and the Zaharonim I was with took to the work immediately, but I did not join them. I was in despair. There was no way we would be able to finish the work on our post in time, and without it, the whole plan would fall through. We were too few in number and had too few tools. This won’t work, I told myself. We won’t last long enough, it won’t work...

I sat down in the dust sent flying from hundreds of digging hands, covering every bit of ground in the excavation area and threatening to engulf my lungs as well. A taste of dust rose in my mouth, I could feel it in my nostrils and inside my mouth, mixing with saliva that became thicker and thicker. I observed the diggers. They looked tired and dispirited. They were just following orders. Perhaps they were prisoners from battles with the Northerners and the Southerners. Or perhaps low caste villagers who were not given a weapon and were forced to do the menial labor, cutting into the mountain day and night.

They labored with great effort, the sweat pouring off their bodies. They most probably had found out what happens to anyone caught not working with all their energy.

I was in the middle of it all. Behind me Zaharonim were beginning to set up our defense position, and in front of me workers were digging to break into the tunnels. Some build and some tear down… The sounds of the work rose from both directions and the dust from both camps mixed in the air into one thin screen. I looked through the haze of dust and had an idea – there was a possibility, a resource we hadn’t thought of! I called five Zaharonim and together we went up to the diggers. “What, what’s going on?” Matan asked me. “You, you and you, go with him,” I said to some of the workers brusquely, pointing to Matan. “He will tell you what to do.” The workers marched towards Matan with their tools without any questions.

Matan looked at me for a moment, puzzled, and then his face lit up and he smiled. “Follow me,” he commanded and turned towards the setting up of the position. Within minutes each Zaharon had recruited several dozen diggers. The work progressed at an incredibly rapid pace. Large rocks were uprooted, piled up and turned into walls and a roof – our fortification. Sacks were filled with dirt and placed around and atop the position. The interior began to take shape. Scores of working hands had turned days of work, which we wouldn’t have had time to finish – into hours.

Every minute counted. The fortification was more valuable to us than the weapons we had brought; it would be our protection from the ‘rain’ that was about to fall on us. In addition to the dozens of working hands, the quarry dirt made it easy for us to fill up the sacks and put them in place quickly. We worked fast, sweating like mad, on the alert and ready if someone came to check on what was going on – but no one did. Everyone assumed that the work had a clear purpose. I realized that we wouldn’t have been suspicious if we had seen a group of Zaharonim erecting a fortification near headquarters. We would assume that there was a reason for it, that someone in the leadership of the mountain had ordered it to be done. And so, exceeding all expectations, we managed to keep working for six straight hours. The position was almost completely fortified when a man wearing a red facecloth approached us with a sullen look. Three Easterners with cocked rifles crept up behind him. “Fools, apes, lunatics, what are you doing?!” he shouted. “What is this nonsense!?”

“Sa’id’s orders,” I answered calmly. “He asked us to set up a fortified position here.”

“What!? What are you talking about? I’m in charge of the excavation. I’m the only one who takes orders from him. Who are you anyway?”

I turned to Matan. “We’re ready, right?” I asked in their language. “Answer me, ape son of an ape!” roared the man. All the workers stopped and stared at what was going on. Matan nodded. I looked into the eyes of the Zaharonim who had come and stood behind me. I gestured with my head at the position and they responded with nods.

The man grabbed my shoulders angrily. “You’re not answering me!?” He yelled. “Who do you think you are!?”

I lowered my eyes and gestured to Matan with my trigger finger. I felt the hand withdraw from my shoulder in fear and surprise. A moment later I heard the shot and his body falling to the ground. I still hadn’t looked up. I heard the running steps of his backup soldiers trying to escape. There were three more shots – Nadav killed all three. It had begun. No more masquerade.

The noise will be heard. All the diggers looked at us, startled and surprised. They did not run; they were trying to understand how a simple argument had turned into a shootout. Easterners began coming in our direction from nearby paths. The diggers laid down their tools. Almost all the Zaharonim were already inside the fortified bunker, which was only slightly higher than its surroundings at the bottom of a small valley that was beginning to fill with Easterners.

The first ones were already just a few dozen meters away. I rushed to the position, the last to enter. “Fire!” I hissed as I went inside and got on the ground. Thirty-four guns started firing everywhere at a rapid rate and shouts could be heard from outside. We had surprised them – we were in enemy territory, but this was our home terrain. They did not expect anyone to take up a position and start shooting. They came out of curiosity, and not with the intention of fighting. They must have assumed that a bullet had been fired by accident or that a fight had gotten out of hand. I listened to the shots. Everything slowed down and faded away. I heard the screams of the wounded from outside as if from behind a thick curtain. After about two more minutes I lay down near one of the narrow openings, and looked out. No one returned fire. A few men were on the run, their backs to us. Others hid behind rocks or bushes or jumped for cover. “Cease firing!” I shouted.

Everything went silent. It was their turn. we were done. We waited for their steps in the cloud of dust. In silence. Seconds turned into minutes in the tense waiting. Time seemed to stretch further into space. We could see movement behind the hills around the small ravine where our position stood. We could hear shouts, but from the distance we understood nothing.

They were organizing. They understood what had happened, and were thinking about how to drain the pus from the open wound we had inflicted on them. But we were more ready and determined than they could imagine. This pus will be difficult to drain.

“Snipers,” I called out loud and heard behind me the movements of five of our snipers taking their positions. The sound of the snipers’ shots broke the heavy silence. Every now and again we saw the accuracy of their shots. The shooting made it difficult for the Easterners to organize and slowed them down.

It didn’t take them long, maybe twenty minutes, but for us it seemed an eternity. They started running and taking positions in front of us, and we didn’t respond. We waited for them to be in range and set up our machine guns. From the size of the force advancing on us we knew that they did not understand what they were dealing with. Maybe they thought it was a soldier or two, or maybe they thought that some of the women had unexpectedly come up from the tunnels. They only sent about two hundred Southerners with guns, and they cautiously moved from shelter to shelter, advancing. When they saw they could do that and we did not react, they became more daring in going from one shelter to the next.

We had four machine guns. Along with our other weapons, that was perfectly adequate. They were now just fifty meters away. Their successful progress gave them confidence. Almost all of them were completely visible: when we set up our position, we made the workers move or crush any rock or mound that might serve as shelter within a radius of almost a hundred meters from our position. We had created a killing field around us.

Everything was ready. We quietly divided the targets among us. “Fire!” I shouted. Most of the Easterners did not fall immediately, but their fate was also decided. Some of them ran forward and others retreated, but we could see all of them within range of the rifles and machine guns. Within a minute and a half, we were already shooting at the wounded.

“Snipers,” I called out. Southerner heads peeking out from the hills went down as men around them began to fall.

The weapons were loaded with ammunition. Until now, our preparations and the element of surprise had been in our favor. But now the Easterners were ready and the real game will begin. I turned on the heavy-duty walkie talkie we had brought with us. Within a few minutes I was able to send the message to the main force and to the women in the tunnels: “We are preparing for a second wave.” I swallowed my saliva. Everything was set. Large forces were arrayed on the mountain, the extent of which we did not know. Almost every Southerner or Northern man who could bear arms was there, and all their guns aimed at our fortified position. How long can we last? The women moved below in the tunnels; the mountain was surrounded by Zaharonim moving stealthily.

All forces were on the move, and we were in the eye of the storm.

After four hours of waiting, we noticed movement over the hills. People crouched low to avoid the snipers’ bullets, but the intent was clear: they were gathering forces from all over the mountain for an assault. In a moment, waves of attack will wash away the small position in which we lay. It was only a matter of time before we would be overwhelmed.

But how long would it take? This is what will determine the fate of the mountain. The movement on the nearby hills died down and a heavy silence filled the air; the most dense, oppressive silence possible.

They are on the brink of the assault.

An explosion rocked the silence. The rocks above us took a heavy barrage of mortar shells. Rock dust fell on the ground around our position, which was completely shaken. It was not by chance that we had chosen a location that was protected from above. We endured repeated explosions that went on for long minutes. The walls shook from the force of the blasts. It seemed they were about to collapse on us. “Too bad the sisters aren’t here,” Oren shouted in my ear. I could barely hear him over the detonations. “They would have seen what a magnificent reception the Easterners had organized in our honor.” Noam’s and my laughter couldn’t be heard in the tumult, but the expressions on our faces were clear.

When the explosions died down, we could hear the assault from outside. Machine guns fired at our firing points. We knew they had snipers waiting for anyone who’d peek out from one of them. We were prepared for that: the firing holes were set at an angle and the openings were dark, so that we could not be seen inside them. Our snipers, on the other hand, immediately started killing the enemy snipers and machine gunners.

They also dealt with threats from above. Our machine guns fired steady bursts at the Easterners who charged from a distance. The rest of the Zaharonim shot at soldiers who were already close. The goal was to prevent them from reaching our position. We knew that once the first Southerner reached us, the battle would be lost. The fortification and the exposed hundred-meter radius were our main advantage.

We fired relentlessly, but they kept advancing. They had also prepared with replacements for those who were injured or killed. Their machine gun fire on our position did not stop for a moment. Kfir was the first to fall and after him I also saw Eldad collapse, pressing on his neck from which blood was running down his body. We had no medic; there was no point in a medic. Everyone knew the rules: those who could, quickly stopped their bleeding and went back to shooting, and those who could not, made room for the others. The wounded continued firing until they could no longer do so.

The enemy kept moving forward. We shot and shot, but we couldn’t stop them. There were too many. They fell, but those behind them took their place and fired from a distance nearer our position. It was clear that the tide of battle was turning in their direction. They sensed it, and began to advance faster over the corpses of their predecessors.

We were prepared for that too.

We had already unloaded two seventy-liter bags containing scores of hand grenades and placed them at five openings. “Grenades!” I yelled and they were quickly passed from hand to hand, and every few seconds were thrown out.

For several minutes, the grenades became the defense line of our post. They created a death zone, and anyone who dared to approach was hit by the shrapnel. Without them we would have lost the position in minutes. The grenades not only stopped the attackers, but again turned the tide of the battle: the Easterners who saw the explosions and shrapnel began slowing down and stopped at the edge of the death zone. Their attack was disrupted. They stopped several meters away from us, but their fellow soldiers kept advancing behind them and pushed them forward. Concentrated groups of Easterners were thus formed a few dozen meters from the position – exactly what our machine gunners were waiting for. The Easterners were shot dead. We continued shooting at their retreating backs. Only a few got back to the hills that surrounded us. The small valley was filled with their corpses.

The gunfire stopped. Again silence. We knew our time to shine had come. With the withdrawal of the attackers, our time at the position ended – and with it our time. Our position was no longer a nuisance, but a real threat. We knew that the Southerner commanders who had failed to capture the position would be eliminated, and Sa’id himself would lead the next attack. In storming the position, no one will be spared. He had no choice: the position stood in the heart of the Easterners excavation area. Sa’id knew that within a few days the Zaharonim would arrive and attack. If he did not have time to break into the tunnels and capture the women first, he would lose everything. Without a strong bargaining chip, the battle on the mountain would be his last. If Sa’id sends tens of thousands of attackers towards us, they can defeat us even with their bare hands. We had no way out. We could only fortify ourselves between the rocks and the sand bags and wait.

We prepared for the final battle. We automatically did what we knew how to do, what the body did without thinking, what years of Hell training had produced. Our snipers continued to look for any raised heads, while we reorganized the post. The sand bags that caught bullets and shrapnel had saved our lives, but they were almost empty and had to be refilled. We piled the bodies of the seven Zaharonim who had lit up in the center of the position. Another eight were seriously hurt. Four of them could not function in battle, and might not last until it breaks out again. We realized how dire our situation was when we checked our ammunition: we had used more than half the grenades and almost two thirds of machine gun and rifle ammunition. Soon we would remain stripped bare of defense. We knew that if the Easterners had been aware of our situation, they would not waste time preparing and would simply attack immediately. They most probably assumed we had enough ammunition for another containment battle.

The response was not long in coming. This time it took them six hours to ready themselves for the next assault, which began with a hail of fire.

The firing was much stronger than before. The Easterners aimed several machine guns at each fire opening. We could barely move around; Amir tried to look out and immediately fell. When we managed to peek out of the hidden crevices we realized the reason for the heavy fire. This time Sa’id had not taken a risk. Two huge waves of Easterners advanced towards us in leaps and bounds – one group firing machine guns and personal weapons at the openings in our position while the other advanced, until the previous group passes it and so on, repeatedly. Judging by the number of the Easterners, they did not even need to advance this way. The small valley was filled with thousands of men jumping over inert bodies. It was a display of Sa’id’s power. This time he took no chances. Failure was out of the question.

We had to act before they reached the range from which they could throw grenades into our position. The sand bags were piled up in front of the openings and gravel shoveled between them, to prevent a situation where one grenade could wipe us all out, but after that the second grenade would come and then the third, and within a few minutes the position would fall. I crawled through the group and briefed everyone. It’s time to shine. “Fire!” I shouted. Everyone echoed me. We started firing at once through all the firing slits. They were closer than we had thought. A few Zaharonim were hit and fell back, but we continued firing. We quickly replaced the grenade throwers and the machine gunners who had been hit.

The fire and grenades thrown at the exposed attackers caused enormous damage.

I went to the wounded to check their condition. I helped stop heavy bleeding and encouraged them to go up to the firing points and keep shooting; we needed all we had. Only the dead and the seriously wounded remained in the center of the position, and almost all the Zaharonim were injured to one degree or another. I, who crawled among the wounded and was less exposed to the fire, was the last one who was not injured. Only when I returned to my spot did I feel the snake bite on my shoulder. A bullet had pierced my shoulder and I fell. Yinon rushed to me. “I’m fine,” I said. “Help me up.”

Blood was coming out of the shoulder, but the bleeding did not appear to be severe. Yinon was not there to comfort or support me. “Get up and keep shooting,” he said quietly. “We have no more grenades and we need every rifle.” He looked at me and his smile lifted me back into the heat of the battle, but when I tried to shoot, a shock like electricity slashed through my shoulder and I was thrown to the floor, writhing in pain.

I pressed the injured hand to my chest, leaned on the rifle and stood up. I placed the rifle in the slot and started shooting with one hand. They were closer than I thought. I didn’t know what was happening on the other sides of the position, but it would not have changed anything. I had already stopped being the commander. I was just a killer with a loaded gun. I didn’t know how many of us were left alive, and even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was not possible to deal with the number of Easterners running through the valley. In a few minutes, we will all have shined.

And then it began – the whole world seemed to explode around us. A huge blast rocked the valley. Massive blocks of rock flew everywhere and the ground shook. “It’s happening!” I shouted, and tears began to flow uncontrollably from my eyes. We had succeeded, though the position was shaking and the rocks threatened to collapse down on us. I looked out and saw that a large crater had opened up under the feet of the charging Easterners, who were desperately trying to hold on but were engulfed in it along with lumps of rock and dirt. “The women activated the charges,” I shouted. “They activated the charges.”

Suddenly the whole world was in motion. A force of women broke out of a hidden opening in the tunnels to the northeast of the edge of the valley and charged the rear line of the Easterners. From the south, a stream of Zaharonim burst out of hiding and attacked the Southerner rear from the southeast. The whole mountain was in flames. I looked back. In the position were eight other Zaharonim still alive besides me, wounded and bleeding and covered in dust, but their eyes were open and shining. We had succeeded. The small position we established forced the Easterners to concentrate most of their forces on us and thus thin out their defenses around the mountain. Our forces took advantage of the situation and our familiarity with the mountain to sneak through the depleted defense lines, thus managing to bring enough Zaharonim to the mountain for a surprise attack. The explosion of the charges was the signal for a coordinated attack. At exactly that moment, everyone charged – the women burst out of the ground and the Zaharonim flew out of hiding.

Panic seized the Easterners camp. They poured into the valley towards our position by the thousands. The women’s force attacked their rear from the northeast, the Zaharonim from the southeast, and they fled in the only direction they could – west, straight towards us. The joy that had gripped us for a few moments turned to terror as the huge mass of Easterners rushed in our direction.

I shouted to those who were left to get back into position, but it was too late.

We didn’t have enough ammunition, and they were too close and too numerous.

Every man or woman from the Northern Zohar was now involved in the fighting. They pressed forward against the enormous force of Easterners who were now on the defensive. Thousands of Easterners came in our direction, going around the huge crater or trying to climb out of it. We fired until we had no more ammunition. They quickly closed in on us and started firing into the position. Some of the Zaharonim and women had positioned themselves above the valley to shoot the runaways, so that the pace of their charge towards us became a desperate run. Another explosion rocked the position, this time from the inside – a grenade exploded a few meters away from me. Only the fact that it fell between the sand bags had saved me.

They are here! All that remains is to shine!

“You must not be taken alive,” I muttered to myself and lay on the floor. “You must not be taken alive...” I picked up the rifle and put the barrel in my mouth. It was full of sand and gunpowder, and a bitter burning sensation filled my mouth. The bleeding from the shoulder continued. Every movement was followed by heavy breathing. “You must not be taken alive,” I kept muttering. “…must not be taken alive...”

I put my finger on the trigger and tried to slow my breathing, absorbing the bitterness. So, this is how a final breath feels. The explosions rocked the position. I heard no more firing from the Zaharonim next to me. Has everyone already shined? This was the moment that all Zaharonim knew would come, and I quietly whispered: “All my desire is to shine for a moment. My whole life will have meaning and value if I…”

A grenade exploded next to me, beyond the line of dirt bags. Several of the bags fell on me with a thump and knocked the rifle out of my hands. A sharp, burning pain spread from my shoulder. Blood also began flowing from my nose, which was apparently broken. I fumbled for another gun, and after a few movements, even with the bags still on me, felt the touch of metal. I pulled it towards me. I could already feel the trigger, but then I felt a terrible pain in my fingers.

Bleeding amongst the bags of sand, my eyes still closed because of the dust, it took me a few seconds to realize that a heavy boot had stamped on the palm of my hand.

The realization dawned on me slowly: my end would be bitter. I would not be able to shine.

The sand bags were pulled off me. I saw Easterners around me, shooting from behind the defensive positions we had set up. “You must not be taken alive,” I muttered over and over…

A Southerner with a red face cloth grabbed my hand and dragged me over the bodies of the dead Zaharonim, over the machine guns boiling hot from firing, over stones and bags of sand, but I could only feel my shoulder burning like hell fire. I gasped in pain and could barely breathe. “You must not be taken alive,” I heard the screaming in my head. “You must not be taken alive.” My body was suddenly dropped near the hole blown in the walls of the position. Out of my pain I saw Yinon, half his face a bloody mass, his arm torn from his shoulder. His one remaining eye looked straight into mine, seeming to exhort me with what I already knew: Not to be taken alive!

They pulled me outside into the blinding sunlight. Even after my eyes adjusted, the pain consumed all my thoughts. I could barely raise my head. The Southerner dragged me behind the position structure. I could see that half of it had already collapsed. I saw things in a blur, as if in a dream: the commanders were shouting, sending men from position to position and dispersing weapons to them. Some Easterners tried to build improvised positions in the area, others lay on the ground and returned the fire from the Zaharonim force that rained down bullets on them – but most of the Easterners tried to flee west, afraid of the force closing in on them. Their commanders tried to take control of the mass retreat and concentrate their soldiers on a front line they drew about a hundred meters behind the position we had built.

My gaze darted from place to place in the commotion of the battle. The Southerner kept dragging me over stones and sand, and finally dropped me in the center of a makeshift structure, at the feet of a man who bent down until his face was right in front of me. He looked at me with interest and calm, as if promising that now that everything was over, everything will finally be all right.

Maybe I had shone after all… I thought for a moment. The Southerner who had dragged me there swung his leg back and kicked me hard in the gut. I curled up in pain. “Here is the dog, Sa’id,” he said.

The Southerner swung his leg back again, but the man leaning over me held up his hand in silence. The man froze in the middle of his movement. I could not think and I did not try to understand. Only one sentence kept pounding in my head through the screen of pain, over and over, coloring my thoughts. “You must not be taken alive… not be taken alive, not alive…”

Sa’id continued looking, examining the uniform I was wearing and the face cloth. Suddenly his gaze altered. His green eyes flickered left and right. He was putting together the details, gaining an understanding of how we had built a fortified position in the heart of the excavation area. His eyes blazed and widened. Until that moment he was planning to get information out of me, but now, when he realized the charade we had pulled off in the middle of the territory he had conquered, he was overcome with rage. “Dog!” He waved the gun in his hands. A loud ringing rose between my temples and then nothing. I heard the voices as if in a dream: shouting, running, and the blast machine guns were jumbled inside in my head and swallowed up behind a black screen... black and silent.

RACHELI

Chapter 16

RED SKY

Racheli awoke with the first light of morning. She did not move, but just opened her eyes. The tracker game was still in progress, and she was not going to give the other parties an advantage. She listened quietly for moment. On her left, rodents finished their night’s foraging and were preparing to return to their dens. Racheli had discovered them under one of the stones when she surveyed the area yesterday evening. From the calmness of the animals, she reckoned that they did not sense any threat in the surroundings. A gentle breeze blew through the bushes. Racheli turned her head slowly and checked the tripwire noise traps she had set last night. They were still intact. The area was still and there was no time to waste. Racheli used her familiarity with the terrain and the faint light just before sunrise – which obscured her presence in the bush – in order to quickly get ready to continue the game. First, she buried the hand ax deep inside her bag – she wouldn’t need it for the tracking, and outside the bag it was heavy and interfered with her agile movement. On top of the axe, she placed her sleeping blanket, and on top of that, she placed the food she had collected the day before.

Filled with joy to continue the game, she came out of the bush in the opposite direction from where she entered yesterday, circled a large rock and climbed on top of it. The tracker ahead of her was skillful, but she knew that no one had put in as many hours of training to attain the level of skill that she had. She was going to win this friendly battle of the trackers. She crawled forward on the rock and surveyed the surroundings. In the light that had now become brighter, her eyes made out the tracks from yesterday. No new footprints had been added, and there was no vantage point as high as hers in the area from which she could be seen without her noticing it. Now she was ready for the day without fear of being discovered.

Racheli climbed down off the rock and went back to her sleeping area. She quickly scattered leaves over it to erase any sign of her having been there, then went back to the tracks of the big feline animal and the traces of the other tracker. Racheli studied them attentively; something has changed, she thought. She fixed her eyes on the tracks but could not figure out what was causing her unease. The pattern in the sand was the same as before, the way it spread the sand around the footprint, and yet... suddenly it hit her. The color of the tracks was different! There was something reddish about them. Racheli looked up in wonder. How had she not noticed this until now!? Perhaps the dim light of the morning had made it difficult for her to see, and only now she saw it clearly? Whatever caused the change in the hue of the tracks was right above her: the sky itself had turned red…

Racheli looked all around. A shade of red had colored the whole world. She sat down on a large rock. It was white limestone, but it too was tinted a crimson shade, which blended well with the colors of the lichens that grew on it. The color was similar to a sunset seen through a haze. Racheli had never come upon such a phenomenon. She had seen countless red sunrises and sunsets – she was almost always awake to catch both. Some were a darker red than others. Particles in the air refracted the sun’s rays and changed the color of the light; the heavier the haze, the deeper the red of the sunset.

But this red was different. The color red was everywhere. It was not only on the horizon and not only in the sky, but colored everything with a distinct and definite hue. Racheli examined the fields, rocks and bushes that had all changed color. “An atmospheric phenomenon,” she said to herself out loud. “There is no other reason.” But the phenomenon had to be extreme to bring about a change of this magnitude. Something enormous is about to happen – was already happening.

Her thoughts began to race. Her first instinct was to go into the forest. She knew she would be safe there; it was her kingdom. But the forest would have to wait. First of all, Racheli thought, she needed to know what exactly was going on. She lacked information to make the right decision. Maybe it was an unusual but transient type of air pollution? Maybe a natural phenomenon she had never heard of?

It was impossible to take action without information. And where could she gather information? For a moment she considered taking the cell phone out of her bag, installing the battery and checking the internet, but after a moment she decided that she could not rely on information in the media. This was the time to confer with her friends, she thought. One of them must know what this is about, and the information is probably passing among them. In her head she went through the names of the friends she trusted and tried to decide which one was the closest. Dror Schori, she decided. He lives in Harrarit in the mountains, and she could get there in a few hours of brisk walking.

Dror’s methodological sense was as good as Racheli’s. Their common interest in construction projects and traps had brought them together, and since then they had helped each other almost every time they encountered difficulties in the work of planning or assembly. Dror was one of the smartest people she knew and was also in touch with many other friends. He was the man to get information from. He was also the closest of anyone she knew. And even if he was not in Harrarit, there would be other knowledgeable friends there. One of them must know.

But going to the mountains meant giving up the tracking game that fascinated her so much. Racheli got off the rock and walked slowly towards the tracks. She looked at them intently for a few minutes. The big cat and the tracker that followed her gave her the urge to let other people take care of things and keep on with the game. She looked around at the reddish surroundings. “This has nothing to do with you,” the footprints called to her. The figures seemed to come out of it again, come to life, turned their heads back and looked at her, calling to her to follow them. Her heart was drawn to them. But the sky was red, red! Racheli stared at the trail for another moment and then turned around and started walking quickly and silently towards Harrarit. It’s fine, she told herself. I’ll see what’s going on and get back to the tracking competition afterwards.

Racheli moved forward quietly and semi-hidden, her brown clothing obscured by the foliage. After a few hours, she was climbing the mountain. The place had grown considerably in recent decades, but the spirit of the group of meditation teachers who founded it in the 1980’s still persisted. Racheli easily managed the steep ascent as well as climbing the fence that surrounded Harrarit. It was late morning, but the paths were empty. The normally bustling village seemed deserted. Racheli listened to the wind that blew undisturbed through sidewalks, gardens and abandoned roads. Something basic in the fabric of reality here had gone awry.

But habits were stronger than the silence, and when Racheli arrived at the yard surrounding Dror’s house, she slowed down and looked through the bushes. Like the whole of Harrarit the garden was also deserted. Racheli opened the old gate and went inside. To the ordinary observer of landscaped and tended gardens, the yard would seem abandoned by its busy owners. But those who knew wild gardens knew how to recognize the touch of love that ruled over everything. The abandoned pile of leaves was actually a treated compost pile, which would provide the plant roots with essential minerals. Buckthorn and hawthorn bushes bearing juicy fruits grew wild in every corner, and under the layer of leaves hundreds of bulbs of cyclamen, primroses, irises and daffodils waited quietly to paint the garden in a multitude of colors before and after the rain.

Racheli entered the yard and peeked through the crack in the door. It was empty. Dror, Shiran and the children were not there. The door was open and the house as uninhabited as the paths outside.

Racheli raised her eyes to the red sky and listened. A thin rustle was in the air. She looked in the direction it came from and headed there with a fox tread, which she used for stealth. She followed the faint noise, which grew louder until she recognized it as a human voice. It was an announcer reading the news, Racheli realized. She reached the house where the voice was coming from. When she entered the garden, she still could not make out the words, but the tone of urgency was clear. Racheli reached the door and opened it in silence. There was no need for that, as almost nothing could be heard over the alarmed voices coming from those seated around the television in the center of the room. Racheli surveyed them through the crack in the door. She knew most of them – whether from courses she had attended, from festivals or from meetings of the Garden Keepers. She saw Shimi, who taught the course for picking skills instructors, and next to him was Tova, who specialized in forest games and was at this moment breastfeeding their daughter, little Ya’ar. Ido was sitting on the sofa looking restless. Rotem sat next to him, held in his arms, a grave expression on her face. Uri and Nur were playing on the floor in front of them. It was obvious that they were oblivious to the distress of the adults around them.

The house was full of people, familiar faces and new ones, and they all looked worried. The babble of words that came from the television conveyed rage and fear. Racheli continued looking around at those present and saw Dror; the familiar dreadlocks gliding over the loose, orange shirt, and the black beard as unkempt as she remembered.

She entered the room and no one noticed. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the TV screen. She closed the door quietly, stepped forward and put her hand on Dror’s shoulder. He was not startled, and turned his head slowly. A broad and loving smile spread across his unshaven face. His long, wild hair swayed as he stood up in his cargo pants, and wrapped his arms around her. Racheli was content and put her arms around his waist, feeling the comfort and security that flowed from his happy and serene embrace.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” he whispered in her ear. “What made you drop by out of nowhere? Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

They made their way through the others into the kitchen, where their arms found each other’s again.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as they pulled away.

“Looking for you,” Racheli replied. “If anyone knows what the hell is going on, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

Dror did not immediately reply. He scrutinized her face. “Not this time, Racheli. I have no idea. Look at me, trying to understand something from the TV like everyone else.”

There was silence, finally broken by Racheli. “The sky is red, Dror,” she whispered. “You understand that this could mean something serious is going on. Do you remember how we talked about this possibility?” She paused for a moment. “Dror, I think it’s time to go to the woods. We’ll be safe there.”

Dror looked at her, and in his eyes, she saw a spark of the mischievousness she knew and loved.

“Hold on, my love,” he finally said, laughing. “Where are you running to? We still have no idea what’s happening and you’re already rushing for the woods? Do you think Shiran will just take the children and go out there? You forget that we have a life here; there are other things besides the woods.”

“The sky is red, Dror, red! Something big is happening. Don’t you see…?”

At that moment the kitchen door opened. A stout man in his fifties entered, his troubled face red and swollen.

Dror hurried to introduce him with a smile. “Racheli, this is Asi, our landlord and good friend.”

Asi didn’t even nod at Racheli, but immediately addressed Dror.

“I can’t watch anymore,” he said. “I had to get out of there.”

“Yes,” said Dror, his eyes cast down. “It’s totally crazy.”

Racheli looked at the two of them and frowned. Dror doesn’t want to hear, she told herself. He doesn’t want to see it. Maybe he is afraid of Shiran’s reaction. Doesn’t he realize we have to go to the forest? The only place we’ll be safe. I have to convince him, she thought. He must listen to me. She looked directly at him. “Yes, interesting,” she said. “Exactly what we talked about at the End of the World Forum.”

“What do you mean, end of the world?!” Asi asked, with a nervous laugh.

Dror gave Racheli a reproachful look. She smiled and his eyes turned to Asi’s questioning face. “A cynical epithet, Asi,” he said. “Don’t take it seriously. We called it that to make fun of ourselves.”

“Yes,” said Racheli, satisfied with what she’d instigated, “it’s just a forum of people from different fields who tried to paint a picture together of what could stop the great machine and to figure out what would happen in such an event.”

Dror interjected. “What good is that now? What are you trying to do, Racheli?” Dror barked at her. She said nothing and he sighed in resignation, turned to Asi and picked up a disposable plastic fork that was on the counter. “How many companies are required to get this fork to you, Asi?”

“What now? Riddles? Asi said peevishly. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Trust me, Asi,” Dror smiled. “Humor me.”

“How many companies… to get this... well, from the beginning until it gets to the store?” Asi said. “Let’s see. There’s manufacturing and there’s marketing, and the store that sells it must have an importer in Israel... So quite a few, I guess. Maybe at least five or six, right?”

“Thousands,” said Dror. “Maybe hundreds of thousands.”

“What do you mean, ‘hundreds of thousands,’ Dror? I work in a factory, you know. What are you talking about!?”

“Today there is almost no enterprise that produces anything solely by itself,” Dror explained. “Think about it. To produce this fork, the plastic had to be manufactured first. And for that, you need raw material and you need machines for production. How many manufacturers did they buy these machines from? And these manufacturers, how many other manufacturers did they buy parts and raw materials from to build the machines to make the fork? And already we are talking about hundreds of companies without whom the process simply cannot take place.

“And all this before we even consider the energy required to run the machines. Without energy nothing would be produced. So how many factories created parts for the machines that make it possible to generate the energy to manufacture the fork in the factory? And how many manufacturers produced the parts that made it possible to transport the energy to the plant to make the fork? And how many manufacturers made the parts to make those parts?

“Not to mention transport and delivery. Where was this fork made? In Asia? So how did it get here? How many companies did it take to get it here? And how many companies made parts for them? What about the truck that drove it from the factory to the port and the van that took it from the port to the shop? How many companies are needed to produce all the parts and all the raw materials for the parts for the companies that manufacture the truck and the van? Behind this one small, disposable plastic fork are thousands of enterprises. Maybe tens of thousands. Production processes and expertise from several countries and continents, transportation by sea on huge cargo ships, all kinds of fuel that had to be extracted and refined, raw materials mined in Africa, Asia for the vehicles, the cranes, the winches... All this for a single fork.” Dror stared at the fork admiringly.

“Well, of course if you consider all the steps, it does take tens of thousands, fine, but so what?” asked Asi. “How is that relevant to our current situation?”

“Because without realizing it, for years we have been setting up a vast machinery of production, interconnecting the entire world, turning it into one big manufacturing network. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great thing. After all, you can buy this fork – which was on four continents and crossed oceans and hundreds of thousands of people were involved in its production directly and indirectly – for a few pennies. This is an efficient and economical machine. A smart production network spanning the globe.”

Asi nodded. “Yes. It is a bit odd to think about it like that.”

“And the point is that it’s not just this fork and not just this table and not just this faucet,” Dror continued. “It’s everything. Everything in our lives – the walls, the floor, the water in the tap, your products in the fridge – everything was produced by this huge machine that we created.

“People no longer drink water from springs or wells dug in the yard. Water is flushed through huge machines produced by hundreds of thousands of entities, and it goes through pipes that who knows how many other entities have produced, and all of this relies on energy that other enterprises have produced and transported, and the water must flow all the time, without a break.”

Racheli and Asi both looked at Dror.

“People don’t think about that,” Dror continued, smiling at Asi. “They still read their children stories about the virtuous farmer who grows food for us in the field, but in reality, that’s no longer true. When we eat a cucumber, the farmer is just a tiny cog in a massive machine. He couldn’t grow anything without water irrigating the soil, without equipment produced by thousands of others, without the companies that market the seeds, without transport and refrigeration, without piping installation, without fertilizer, without sprays... without who knows how many other parts of the machine. Farmers today have no idea how to produce food without the support of the giant machine.”

“Well, that’s not exactly so,” said Asi. “Even you have a vegetable garden at your house…”

Dror smiled. “Yes, with piped irrigation and seedlings from the nursery.”

“Ah, right.” Asi smiled too. “It’s really, really everywhere... interesting. So, in the end, you’re saying this whole thing is bad.”

“Absolutely not!” said Dror. “On the contrary, it’s an excellent thing! The machine is sophisticated and well-organized. We produce things at a level of efficiency never before seen, and because of this we live in a period of abundance that has never been known before in human history. We are living in the first era in recorded history where almost every type of food is available all year round, as is potable water for most of us. Clothing is cheap to make and plentiful. Almost everyone inhabits decent homes, and this abundance only continues growing. And it’s all possible solely thanks to the machine.”

“A perfect world with infinite wealth, eh?” Asi said. “Well, come on, Dror. I know you. What’s the catch? Come on, spit it out.”

Dror and Asi both laughed. “Yes, you know me well,” said Dror. “And there really is a catch. You know, there’s a science fiction story like this, about a miraculous machine that knows how to put molecules together in any order that people choose. Food comes to your door in thirty seconds if you just ask for it: any piece of clothing, any vehicle, any toy... anything you ask for appears at your doorstep in thirty seconds. In a short time, everyone stops producing and stops growing food, and simply enjoys life in this era of plenty.”

“Okay, I got it, fine, like us, and then…?”

“And then, one day, the machine just stops working.”

Asi nodded in silence. “But why would this complex machine you’re talking about just stop working?” he said after a moment.

“That’s exactly what we discussed at the End of the World Forum Racheli spoke of. We asked ourselves what could cause the machine to stop working – and what the results could be.”

“Okay, but we’re not talking here about some washing machine that can break down!” said Asi decisively.

“No, not a washing machine, and yet, in the end, it is just a machine. Bigger, much, much more complex, but still, a machine. And like any machine, it can break down.”

“How?”

“Trade embargoes, for example. The machine runs on raw materials, applied knowhow and parts that are constantly transported from place to place. This is the life blood that flows through its veins. If you stop trade, the machine stops.”

“Why would trade just stop?”

“That’s exactly what we asked ourselves at the forum. It takes a very strong blow for something serious to happen to the machine, but it’s purely a statistical matter – a matter of probabilities. It’s more a question of when it will happen than if it will happen. I’ll give you an example. Maybe a pandemic, worldwide. Throughout human history, once in a while, plagues have decimated large numbers of the population. In today’s wide-open world, a plague can spread quickly between continents, and it can paralyze the machinery for a certain period of time. Even a big enough war can do that.”

“Yes, but that’s the point, isn’t it?” Asi insisted. “It’s only for a certain period, as you say. Even if the machine stops working, it will eventually start working again, won’t it? It’s just a matter of time.”

“Yes, but how much time?”

Asi didn’t answer. He tilted his head to the side. After hours of grinding worry, his fatigue was showing.

“You know,” continued Dror, “in World War II, the machine was just in its infancy. Most food production was still local. Most people ate bread from wheat grown in a field close to home or in a nearby village, as it had been throughout history. And even then, when the trade stopped, famine was widespread. What little foodstuffs that depended on the machine back then and stopped arriving – just a small percentage – almost devastated the population. Today, almost one hundred percent of our food and water depend on the functioning of the machine that we have created. How long will we last without it?”

“Well, there must be food reserves in every country, aren’t there?” said Asi.

“In Israel there are food and fuel reserves for three weeks. And what happens when that runs out? And I’m not even taking into account mass hysteria and looting, just so we can assume – for the sake of argument – that everything works as planned and there is proper transportation. Frankly, I’m not sure that will be the case. Frightened, hungry people get violent. And this is just in Israel. In the countries around us there are reserves for no more than a few days. Where do you think they will go when the food runs out? Hungry people do whatever it takes to get food for their children. Fences, borders and barriers won’t stop them.

“You understand that it’s not just food. Everything in our lives is completely dependent on the machine, even for our most basic needs. Water, for example. For water, you need pumps that keep working, and workers who monitor these pumps and the energy that runs them. What will happen when people stay at home and there is no electricity to run the pumps? There are no clean streams to drink from today, and even if there were, the amount of water in them would simply not be enough for our current population. And it’s not just the water. People don’t understand that even our sewers rely on huge pumps. If there is no power transmission, there are no sewage pumps. How do you think our streets will smell after half a day like this?”

“Tell me,” Asi interrupted him angrily, “do you think the government doesn’t understand this? If there was an actual need, they would have prepared and stored enough reserves.”

Dror’s smile drooped. He looked straight into Asi’s eyes. “People always prepare for what happened yesterday, for what they can imagine. Even in sci-fi movies, spaceships still try to position themselves behind the enemy to shoot laser guns that point forward, like machine guns on planes in WWII movies. A big spaceship still fires laser bursts forward at small spaceships. Do you understand? Even when people think about the future, they are actually imagining what they have already seen, and therefore can imagine. You do know current fighter planes don’t have to be behind the target to shoot, right? That was true in the age of machine guns, but is simply irrelevant with the weapon systems we have today. And yet you still see that in futuristic movies. People and countries are always preparing for the past.”

“So, you think that conflict between countries is what will stop the machine eventually?”

“I’m not so sure,” said Dror. “According to our analysis at the End of the World Forum, it is more likely that it will be from an ecological disaster.”

“Why ecological?” Asi asked

“Because of the positive feedback.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every ecosystem has negative feedback,” Dror explained. “A process that balances the system. The warmer it is, for example, the more evaporation and the more cloud cover to reduce the heat. This is why climate changes are very minor compared to what they could be if you look at the pressure we exert on the system. The problem begins when eventually the positive feedback kicks in. Once that happens, everything just accelerates. At a certain point, an increase in the temperature causes the destruction of the rain forests and thus causes the release of more carbon dioxide, which creates more heat and so on and so forth. Carbon dioxide stored in the sea or in the frozen terrain of Siberia is then released; heat rises, and the process accelerates and repeats again and again. Such a process can be very rapid.”

“What does that mean, rapid?” Asi asked.

“We don’t know. According to estimates by climate scientists, anywhere between a few days and a few months. Very fast.”

Throughout the conversation, Racheli stood and listened, but her patience was wearing thin. Her plan had worked: she had made Dror explain to someone else exactly what she wanted him to see. But time was short. She decided she needed to speed up the process.

“Dror is too pessimistic,” she interrupted them. “One of the characteristics of the great machine humanity has created is its stability. It has a lot of recurring feeds and stabilization systems. Part of the machinery encompasses a body of knowledge designed to improve and optimize it, and another part is to control the mechanisms that maintain the machine. The system averts war, because that will damage various aspects of the machine’s assembly line. It also facilitates international cooperation. Even if there is a temporary shake-up, the machine’s systems will eventually be restored.”

“Yes, but how long will that take?” Dror answered her. “Days? Months? Years?”

Racheli shrugged. “Time,” she said. “The system knows how to correct itself.”

She looked at him and smiled, “That’s why we need to go to the woods now. We both know what’s going to happen here. But in the forest, we can be self-sufficient. Away from the machine we will be safer.”

“What?” said Asi. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, go to the woods? Aren’t you exaggerating a bit? What is this panic?” He shuddered. “All right!” he finally declared and forced a smile. “It seems to me that you two are overstating things here. This will pass, you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”

Asi looked back and forth between them. Neither of them addressed his statement.

“Everything will be fine,” he repeated. “It’s nothing, it will pass. Don’t worry, Racheli, it’s fine…”

Racheli and Dror exchanged another look, and another. A silent conversation was going on now, Asi realized, and he was not part of it. “I’m going back to the living room,” he said, and went out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

“You shouldn’t have toyed with Asi that way,” said Dror.

Racheli stared at him. “This is not a game,” she said. “You know what we need to do.”

Their eyes locked for a few seconds and finally Dror sighed and looked away. “We’re staying,” he said finally. “Shiran won’t go out there now, with the kids and everything.”

Racheli nodded. “I love you, Dror. Give them a big hug from me.”

“Do you want to come say goodbye? They’ll be glad to see you.”

“No. It’s better if I get moving.”

Dror knew Racheli too well to argue. They came towards each other in silence and embraced warmly.

Dror continued to stare at the door for long minutes after she had already gone. He was still standing there, his head full of thoughts, even after Racheli had already swiftly climbed back over the fence and started off quickly, heading south… towards the mountain.

Chapter 17

MOUNTAIN STREAM –
NAHAL MA’APILIM

Moving through the channels flowing to the west was relatively easy. Racheli advanced carefully, semi-hidden. Caution slowed her progress, and it was only late morning of the next day when she began the descent into the great plain of the Zebulun Valley, which connects the hillocks of the lower Galilee with the sea coast. She estimated that walking along the edge of the valley would be the fastest and easiest route to the Carmel mountain and the hidden spring that awaited her.

She began moving on the slopes of the low-lying mountains, a little above the valley, seeing wheat fields and after them the houses spread out below her. The sight was not encouraging. In addition to the red color on everything, smoke was rising from dozens of places between the houses. Every few minutes she heard distant explosions in the wind that shot through the bushes and shook the branches around her. What scared her was not the noise or the smoke in the landscape below her, but rather what was missing from it: Highway Seventy was almost empty. Why? What was going on? With the smoke and the explosions all around, where are the police? The army?

Racheli stopped and went underneath one of the bushes. For the first time since she left Hukok, she took her cell phone out of her backpack and inserted the battery she had stored separately. The phone sprang to life, but proved to be useless: Racheli tried calling Dror and then Merav in the hope of getting an update, and when she failed, she tried to connect to the Internet. Even though she was close to the city and in an open area, there was no reception. It was not partial, but completely gone. This is bad, she thought to herself.

Her mother and sister came to mind. Racheli wasn’t worried about herself; if she had to, she could reach anywhere easily, going practically unnoticed. She knew how to move quickly, and in the woods, no one would find her if she didn’t want to be found. But where are her mother and sister? What is happening to Dror and Shiran and Asaf and Merav? Racheli was totally cut off from everyone she knew. Dror also knew how to go into the woods if he had to, but what is facing her mother and sister who were in the city?

The questions inundated her. Was it the right thing to disappear into the woods? Wouldn’t it be better to help them? But how will she get to them? And if she does get there, how can she help them in the city? Actually, she didn’t even know if they were still home. If they were out, how would she find them? And if she did, what could she do?

No. The right thing for her to do was to enter the forest. She had no other real option. The noises and sights around her did not subside. They continued to accompany her as she advanced, concealed at the edge of the valley. The red that colored the entire area did not boost her confidence. For that reason, when she got to Highway Seven, near the Yegor junction, which was a gravel road between her and the safety of the forest, she decided to wait for nightfall before crossing into the woods. The road was wide and did not offer any shelter. If she crossed in daylight, she would be completely exposed. She hid in the bushes until the last rays of the sun had disappeared. Only then did she emerge and cross the road quickly. The lights on the road weren’t functioning, and the night was pitch dark. The lack of lighting was another bad sign, yet she knew the darkness was in her favor. At night she knew how to use all the senses that were dull in other people who are used to living under bright lights. She knew that she would hear if anyone was approaching; they just didn’t know how to move quietly. Animals could hear them approaching from miles away. Racheli’s slow and stealthy moves would enable her to go right around an ambush if necessary, so she felt safe even when she bypassed Kibbutz Yagur and continued advancing into the woods.

Already in the valley she had smelled smoke, but near Yagur the odor was particularly strong. She quickened her pace. The line of trees was the destination she now aspired to – home. From there on she will be protected and not have to beware of an enemy. The path wound through bushes and trees. Racheli slowed down and let the leaves caress her face. Home! “Don’t stop,” the bushes whispered to her: “Keep going.”

From the moment she felt at home, everything was different. She walked differently and thought differently. The constant focus on stealth gave way to other thoughts. Now she was safe. In the woods no one could get the best of her. She began climbing up the marked path to Nahal Ma’apilim. The climb was steep, but her fatigue was less than before. She was calm and knew she would hear any threat long before she encountered it. The trail was an easy and fast walk despite the steep ascent. The darkness did not hinder her, on the contrary. She was attentive to the sounds of the forest and the shadows. Starlight was enough for her.

She heard the marching behind her from a distance. The marchers made a lot of noise, as people do in the wild. They did try to move in silence and speak only in whispers, but their steps were heavy and the equipment they were carrying rattled. Instead of going further into the woods, she decided to climb a tree for a vantage point. She was completely cut off from everything that was going on in the world; if she could listen to their conversation, she thought, she might get an understanding of what was happening. She positioned herself in the branches above the path, in exactly the same type of position from which she would stalk large animals with her short bayonet. Among the night shadows of the branches and leaves she was invisible even if they looked straight at her. She was higher up than they were. People usually look forward and down, and in the forest, they hardly ever look up. Correct height placement, she knew, was a key to concealment.

The marchers advanced slowly, certain that they were quiet and unnoticed, but their panting under the weight of the weapons they carried was deafening to the inhabitants of the forest. In the darkness Racheli could not see their faces, but as they passed under her one by one, a column hundreds of people long, she heard them whispering in Arabic.

Racheli spoke some Arabic, leftover from a course she had taken in Umm al-Fahm, but she couldn’t understand the whispered words. She recognized that their Arabic was not a local dialect. The intonation was different. The men carried weapons, but their conduct did not indicate real discipline, and they did not seem to have commanders. Just a bunch of armed men marching down the path in no particular order.

The last of those passing under her moved on up the mountain. Racheli stayed in the branches and wondered what was going on. She was irked by her ignorance – and afraid. It was clear that major events were occurring, but she could only think about her grove, her little spring.

Racheli had despised the word “survival” all her life. I don’t go into the woods to ‘survive,’ she would explain over and over to the people she instructed. The forest is not a hostile place you have to ‘survive’ in. That’s just how people who don’t know the forest perceive it, unlike those who see it as a safe home. I enter the forest to live. I am going home. Her goal in entering the forest had never been survival or escape – but now she was going there just to survive.

I have to keep moving, she told herself. She started to descend from the tree, but heard a loud growl from the other side of the wadi and she stopped abruptly. It was clearly a large animal. Something feline maybe. A sound she had never heard before in the grove. The birds heard it too, and the rustle of their fear went through the trees. What is this big cat that she was hearing in the woods?

The realization hit her suddenly. The tracking game was not over, it had just changed direction. The big animal was now after her. It had smelled her and was waiting for her on the cliff, followed her after she had stopped playing and mase the detour to meet with Dror at Harrarit. But why? Did the animal see Racheli as a threat because she had followed her? Maybe the animal was hungry, and has sensed a lone prey wandering defenselessly in the fields? Was she convenient food for capture?

It was easy for her to deal with humans in the woods. They were as if blind and deaf. But a large predator? Racheli suddenly realized that she herself had always been the predator in her environment. She had never played the game from the other side. She was never the prey.

This was a confrontation on a different scale. The predator had been following her advances soundlessly, it knows how to listen and sees perfectly in the darkness of the forest, and it has an additional powerful weapon that is not at her disposal – a sharp sense of smell, which allows it to identify her even from a great distance.

She must disguise her scent, Racheli thought immediately. After all, a good scent mask can make a hunter undetectable even to animals with the most highly developed sense of smell.

She crept towards the river channel. She was already thinking about what plants she could pick at the bottom of the gorge to apply to her body and mask her scent. She moved without making a sound, but she knew that until she had obscured her scent, she would be conspicuous to the beast. She listened carefully while heading down to the river channel. The beast will continue moving in silence, but even the most skilled sneaking predator sometimes makes mistakes. She felt the pounding of her heart. This was a new and unfamiliar situation, and her fear of the predator’s sharp fangs was intense.

Racheli approached the channel between the rocks. It was dry this time of year. The channel formed a ravine, which she was now standing above. She looked down and could see nothing in the darkness. The walls of the ravine were high – at least two or three meters. At this spot it was narrow, about a meter to a meter and a half.

Racheli decided to climb on the other side of the narrow gorge, and for that she would have to leap to get there. She knew she could make it across with an easy jump. She stepped back and leaped forward – and was already rising in the air when she heard the sound of heavy paws on the ground behind her. She turned back as she jumped, but before she could see the animal, she slammed into the rocky wall on the other side of the ravine. She tumbled into the crevice and hit her head on the jagged edge of the rock. The world faded away as her limp body sank into the depths of the black ravine.

Chapter 18

COALS

Buried deep under the thick blanket of the dream, Racheli saw herself in the school laboratory, bending over the microscope, the 3D device she would look through for hours. She was inspecting a single leaf of tree tobacco, and through the powerful magnifying lenses a tiny, hidden universe opened up to her – one universe among billions of others in every leaf and every bit of soil. Before her eyes, appeared the thousands of creatures that lived on the leaf, eating and being eaten, fighting and cooperating: an entire food chain whose world was a single tobacco leaf. Some of the creatures moved in groups and fed on the flesh of the leaf, while the carnivore creatures fed on the flesh of the vegetarians. There were infinitely tiny creatures and giant ones. Racheli saw a black caterpillar moving forward on its pin-like legs and devouring pieces of the leaf. The thing was minuscule to humans, but to the other creatures it was enormous.

In her dream the world began to blur, then it became greener and greener and brighter and brighter, until the dazzling green surrounded her and she was there, among the creatures, standing erect on the leaf and looking down at its reedy veins, which were swollen from the liquid that flowed through them. Creatures of various sizes were all around her. She looked at them. Suddenly a breach opened in the green wall. Light poured into it followed by sharp blades frenetically digesting everything in their path.

The mouth of the black caterpillar opened wider and several tiny eyes peeked through, fixed on a bright black head swerving in different directions. A black hair-lined hole opened underneath, like a sinkhole, the cavity of the digestive tract. A moment later the black body crawled inside. It had no arms, only a hairy corpus covered with tiny hook-like spines.

Racheli gaped at the black caterpillar, mesmerized, and saw a yellow spot on the black mass; a hole had opened in its body. Yellow and white drops dripped from it: lumps of the caterpillar’s flesh oozed out of the black corpus. And from the opening in the body, red legs emerged, followed by a wriggling wasp. It had probably produced a larva inside the caterpillar, and now it was eating the caterpillar alive from the inside.

The black body suddenly turned towards Racheli and moved quickly forward. She tried to get out of the way, but her body weight turned the flesh of the leaf into a soft pulp. Her legs, which were suited for a substrate of stones and earth, were useless on the leaf. The leaf pulp, which had already gotten up to her knees, went higher and higher. Racheli was unable to move. The black body approached. The sharp blades of the caterpillar’s mandible opened and shut faster and it came closer, devouring leaf tissue as it went. Racheli could already feel the powerful suction coming from the black orifice. The leaf wobbled underneath her; she fell backwards and the black body passed by her at the last moment.

The hole in its flesh was now directly above her, and through it four horizontal eyes were revealed, and behind them a mouth with dozens of tiny sharp fangs.

The caterpillar’s black body continued squirming forward and suddenly stopped. The sliding movement ceased at once. It turned its front end around and faced her. A shrill voice came from the dark hole. The metallic whisper became a growl that grew louder and turned into a scream. Racheli covered her ears. Words slowly emerged from the horrible screeching sound: “Everything is fine, Racheli, it’s nothing, it will pass, don’t worry, Racheli, everything is fine…” She tried to free her legs, but she couldn’t. The voice was suddenly heard from above her, emanating from the yellow hole that had opened in the black body, a gruff voice that grew louder, and then many voices merged into one excruciating shriek: “Everything is fine, Racheli, it’s nothing, it will pass, don’t worry, Racheli, everything is fine…” The voices got even louder and Racheli’s hands over her ears were no longer helpful. She writhed in pain. Still the voices grew louder. The green world began to shake and vibrate. Lumps began falling from the black body, which was disintegrating before her eyes. “Everything is fine, Racheli, it’s nothing, it will pass, don’t worry, Racheli, everything is fine…”

The sound was so deafening that Racheli screamed, which shook the leaf. Chunks of it flew in all directions: black bits mixed with the green, the green with the white. Racheli’s cry was not audible in the uproar. The world around her became a whirlwind of torn caterpillar flesh and the flesh of the leaf. Her screams were mixed with the words that continued exploding around her: “Everything is fine, Racheli, it’s nothing, it will pass, don’t worry, Racheli, everything is fine…”

The vortex swirled faster and faster. The colors became brighter. Dazzling light flashed at Racheli and she opened her eyes, awake. The light penetrated her eyelids. She felt throbbing pain that worsened when her eyes were fully open. She felt for the pulse in her left temple. Due to the pain, it took a long time for her vision to clear. She found herself between stone walls on a portion of a smooth rock floor. She rose slowly to a crouched sitting position, and the images came back: the explosions, the armed men on the path, the sound of the animal pursuing her, all jumbled up inside her pulsating head.

She looked up to the place from where she had fallen, and saw daylight. She felt the side of her head. The place where it had hit the rock was swollen and painful to the touch. She looked up again and understood that it could have been a lot worse. Perhaps the fall had saved her from the great beast that threatened to devour her.

How long had it been? The daylight from above was intense, so it was probably noon. She had fallen late in the evening. Had she been here fourteen hours? Maybe more? Or had she lain here for two…or even three days? Suddenly she felt a terrible thirst. Dryness burned in her throat, and she hurriedly pulled a bottle of water from her bag and emptied it all in one gulp. The voices of the marching men, the explosions and the smoke came back inside her head again. What had happened in the world while she was lying in the narrow gorge?

The headache did not let up, but her thoughts slowly came together and she began to scan her surroundings. She was sitting in a ravine, leaning against a rock wall. The river channel, as one would expect at this time of year, was dry but humid. Fresh vegetation covering the exposed rocks took nourishment from the little light that penetrated the gorge.

Faint, light footsteps audible on her left brought her train of thought to a halt. She shifted her gaze without turning her head, so as not to create unnecessary movement, and saw several small field mice – six or seven of them – fighting with each other. She raised her head to be sure. It was true: field mice in broad daylight, right next to her.

Racheli knew this was not possible. Mice are nocturnal creatures. She had never seen them act like this during the day. In fact, even at night she had never seen them fighting so openly. Mice are prey for many animals, so they will never approach a human or any other large animal. But more surprising was to see three hedgehogs wobbling near them. Hedgehogs are also nocturnal. During the day they hide in their burrows and under bushes and stones, and hedgehogs are solitary animals, they don’t tend to congregate together.

Racheli’s gaze roamed over the length of the channel. There were many other animals there. In the eyes of an untrained person, the scene might have been charming, but in Racheli’s eyes it was clear that the place was teeming with life in a very strange manner: animals of different species, active at different times of the day, were huddled together in the narrow depression. At that moment Racheli felt that she was just another one of them.

After a few minutes, when her headache subsided, Racheli put the water bottle back in the bag and began to climb the rock wall. She found an area where the two sides of the walls of the ravine were close together, and climbed with her arms and legs straddling them. At first her limbs were sluggish, but the climb invigorated them. Within a few minutes she felt the narrow opening and pushed herself up and out of the gorge. As she neared the edge, she blinked in the blinding sun and tears welled up in her eyes.

For a moment it seemed to her that everything around her was black. She breathed deeply and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light. But everything remained black around her even after ten seconds and after half a minute. Only then did she realize: it wasn’t her eyes – the surroundings were black. Black coal covered the slopes. In place of the magnificent green trees that had adorned the top of the southern and northern slopes of the channel a few days before, there were charred stumps. Racheli could not even identify the spot where she had climbed the tree to spy on the marchers coming up the path. While she was lying unconscious at the bottom of the ravine, everything had gone up in flames!

Out of the blackness that covered everything, out of a narrow and deep crevice in the warm earth, Racheli rose and burst into the world and into the intense light, wet and trembling. The wind blew unobstructed over the scorched earth. Here and there it was still smoldering. Everything was painfully desolate.

The thought came to her on its own: she had to get to the spring. Racheli swallowed her saliva and felt the taste of burnt dust that filled the air. There was no path to climb. She made her way down the steep slope, stepping on piles of black coal. Her breathing was heavy from the steep climb in the blazing sun. She was completely exposed. A pinch of color in a sea of black. She didn’t try to hide – there was no hiding place. She just wanted to get out of the burnt gorge and dive into the cool woods – to reach home, to the spring for which she yearned.

Her head was still heavy and dull from the fall, and the feeling only worsened as her heart rate rose on the quick walk up the mountainside. The back of her neck burned from the sun and her heavy breathing burned with dryness. Each step made a cracking noise from the coals under her black feet. She made more noise than the marchers she had heard on the trails, but now none of that mattered. The promise of shelter by the spring, away from the smoldering channel, urged her forward. She didn’t stop to catch her breath or to look back at the opening from which she had emerged. She climbed towards the freedom that awaited her in the grove.

By the afternoon she could see the exit pathway from the burnt channel and continued quickly to the top of the Carmel. Her heart quivered as the landscape began to unfold beneath her – the greenery would be seen again… but it was not. What did appear was a wide black tableau. Not just the channel. The entire Carmel Mountain was black; black dotted with green dots few and far between, which floated like thin shells on the waves of a sea of tar that stretched out before her. The wisps of smoke only added to the atmosphere of absolute desolation on the mountain, which was always green all year round. Racheli looked down, towards the lower Galilee. The columns of smoke that billowed on the horizon told the same story that the Carmel told: everything had burned.

“What would have happened if I had gotten to the spring two days ago?” Racheli asked herself out loud, and immediately had the answer: you cannot outrun a fire on foot. It skips between treetops, leaps great distances and is carried everywhere by the wind. If she had been at the spring, she would not have survived; the fire would have consumed her as well. And what happened to the family of foxes that had a den near the spring? Foxes live in permanent couples, a loving male and female who raise their cubs together with warmth, patience and great care. Racheli had a name for each of the family members, the parents and the pups, and she knew their different characters and their habits. What happened to them in the great fire? And what about the large family of voles? And the three porcupine couples who bickered endlessly at night? And the jackals… the green lizards… the turtles!?

Racheli hoped with all her heart that they had all died in the fire. It was a cruel death, yet far better than the fate that awaited those who managed to hide from the flames. Those who survived would slowly starve to death or fight their own kind to the death for the few remaining scraps of food.

She fell to her knees on the coals. Tears filled her eyes as she recalled the trees and animals whose songs she heard during all the months she spent at the spring. Everything had burned – everything.

Through her tears, the realization hit her and she caught her breath – what a stupid idea it was to go into the forest. After all, without electricity, people would use fire for heat and for cooking. Unskilled people who light fires in many places mean only one thing – fires, lots of fires. Even when all the rescue and firefighting forces worked together, backed by volunteers and firefighting planes with water tanks, it was not easy to stop a raging fire, and sometimes even impossible…And now, when the fire brigade was paralyzed, one spark was enough. Fire simply leapt from one place to another without hindrance and can easily travel a distance of hundreds or even thousands of kilometers.

How naive and senseless was the idea of going into the woods. Now there were hungry people everywhere, many of them armed. Within days they will seize any mammal or fowl they can find. Nothing will be left. Farm and household animals will also disappear in a short time. Hunger conquers all, and the combination of hunger and firearms only leads to one thing… Hunting and gathering were now futile options.

“There is nothing left,” Racheli said aloud. “And no place for me to go.” Nausea and dizziness came over her. She was tired, thirsty, and her head was in a fog. Where can she go? She surely will be able to find water, and even if it is not clean, it will be enough for now. In the bag she had food for two days, and afterwards she would be able to fast for at least a week without her abilities being impaired. But where to go? There amidst the charred stubble, Racheli felt completely alone, and lonely. One woman in a burnt out and empty world.

A single name arose, luminous, from her desperate state: Gila. Besides the mountain there was Gila. “Yes,” Racheli said lout loud and a spark of hope lit up in her heart. “Gila!”

Chapter 19

HOPE

Everyone knew Gila. She was a big woman who always wore layers and layers of baggy and worn-out clothing, taught meditation classes and ran a thrift shop in a large, abandoned warehouse in the middle of a field in Emek Hefer. Racheli had been to the store several times, but had never exchanged more than a word or two with Gila – until the argument with Ofer.

Ofer was the head of the Garden Keepers, and it was the rift between him and Racheli that caused her to leave the organization and distance herself from her friends and basically from everything she knew and loved. One day, when she came to Gila’s store to look for a used book, something of this estrangement was apparently evident about her. Gila noticed it and invited her into the office, for herbal tea and cookies.

On her knees now, on the coals, Racheli remembered Gila’s office, which was situated in a small corner, hidden among the countless aisles with shelves crammed with books in different languages, as well as sofas, napkins, brushes, large and small electrical appliances, toys of all kinds and row upon row of clothing sorted by age and size. Anyone could bring to Gila’s store any old object that someone else might find a use for. Above the door of the store hung a colorful sign in Gila’s round and curled handwriting: “Take as much as the body and home need and give as much as the heart and pocket can afford.”

Gila and Racheli dipped the cookies in their tea, and between the dipping and sipping, Racheli felt that words were being pulled out of her mouth and the story of the fight with Ofer was woven into them. After the words came the tears. Racheli had never cried in front of others, not even as a child, and here, like an abandoned street girl whom the tall, plump woman had chosen to pick up, tears filled her eyes. Racheli did not understand how, but within minutes she heard herself telling Gila things she had never told anyone before.

When the outpouring of words and tears ended, Racheli stopped, surprised and exhausted. Gila approached her and wrapped her in a warm hug. “Maybe you lie down here and take a nap?” Gila asked. Racheli nodded. Within a few minutes she had fallen asleep curled up on a couch in one of the corners of the warehouse. She slept for ten whole hours, and when she woke up the next day, her heart was lighter. Throughout that day, she helped Gila in the store and got to know all the hidden corners in the big, quiet warehouse. She found a collection of antique globes, a shelf of rolled up maps that looked like ancient treasure maps, an assortment of costumes, antique menorahs... treasure after treasure.

The quiet did her good, and since she didn’t have to be anywhere, she decided to stay in the store a few more days. The few days turned into a month and then several months. This was the longest period of time she had spent in one place since her military service.

Most of the customers were poor, and came to look for basic products they could not afford to buy. When someone could not come, usually because of health or transportation problems, Gila would deliver the things to their homes. In a short time, Racheli realized that donations to the store were not enough, and that Gila financed the place with her own funds.

In her spare time, Racheli continued to sharpen and practice her skills. She built things and made carvings, deciphered tracks and collected plants. Gila, on the other hand, spent a considerable amount of time sitting in complete silence, in the exact same position, her eyes closed and her face soft and focused.

The differences between them were evident in almost everything they did. Racheli mainly read practical guides that dealt with vegetation, geology, stone chipping, building traps, using wild plants and building shelters. The more practical and useful a book was, the more delightful it was to her. Gila – at least it seemed to Racheli – had never read anything practical or useful, instead devouring almost five books a week, on different subjects: art, design, philosophy, science, history, and much more. Racheli never understood by what logic Gila chose her next book.

The differences in perceptions and temperament between them also sparked quite a few debates. One day Racheli entered the office and found Gila reading a history book about the Appalachian tribes in North America. On the cover was a large painting of an Appalachian warrior in traditional battle dress.

“I didn’t know you were interested in the Appalachians,” Racheli said.

“It’s an excellent book,” answered Gila. “It describes their conquest of a vast area in North America.”

“Well, obviously they had an advantage – they were excellent trackers and fighters,” Racheli said. “Many of the methods I practice come from them.”

“Yes,” Gila said. “And they also had the advantage of being a matrilineal society.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Racheli asked. “They simply had phenomenal tracking and fighting skills.”

Gila smiled. She looked at Racheli and then back at the book. “It’s easy to focus on technical skills,” she said, “but fighting starts in the head – and in the head, matrilineality changes the whole picture.”

Racheli had never delved into anthropology. She always found societal matters pointless. “Remind me, what is matrilineality?”

Gila put the book down and leaned back in her chair. “We,” she began, “live in a patrilineal society where the children belong to the father’s family. They receive his surname, and in the past also grew up with his family. In these cultures, when they marry, the woman is subsumed into the man’s family and therefore receives his surname. In such a society, the man is the one who passes on the family affiliation. If a man dies and has no descendants, it is a tragedy. When a patrilineal society conquers another group, it kills the men, but it has no reason to kill the women. They can produce more children for the families of the conquerors – that is, posterity.”

“And how is it different in matrilineal societies?” Racheli asked.

“In matrilineal societies,” Gila replied with a smile, “family affiliation is determined according to one’s mother. The child belongs to the family of the woman and her siblings. They are the ones who raise the children and educate them. The biological father only comes to visit. In such societies, it is not the man who produces the next generation; his sister does. When a man dies, his lineage lives on as long as his sisters are alive. In such a society, when you conquer another tribe and want to destroy it, you kill all the women and take the male children into your tribe.”

“I still don’t understand what that’s got to do with anything,” Racheli insisted. “With all due respect to whomever passes on people’s last name, in the end there is an advantage to those who are more skilled and who are willing to go all the way in combat.”

“And who is willing to go all the way?” Gila smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“What makes people choose to go all the way, to the very end?” Gila repeated.

“What?”

“Matrilineality, among other things,” Gila said, patting the cover of the book. “Understand,” she continued. “In a patrilineal society, a man’s death is a disaster. The chain is broken. But in a matrilineal society, if a man dies, it’s not really a disaster. Not as long as the women survive. That’s why in these societies, men are willing to sacrifice themselves more easily. Such a society will be made up of warriors ready to fight to the death. That’s why matrilineal tribes were always the most determined, bravest and cruelest warriors.”

Racheli thought about these things. Gila looked at her intently.

“If that is true,” Racheli finally said, “then why did the patrilineal societies conquer the world?”

“That’s another matter,” answered Gila. “It’s not because of their fighting spirit. At any given time, matrilineal societies will often be the strongest, yet over time the patrilineal societies will take over.”

“Why?”

“In patrilineal societies there is more competition. Every man is a progenitor, and thus is in competition with other men even within his own family and his own tribe. This is why in such societies there is usually more rivalry and less cooperation. Their mentality is to adopt innovations and look for technologies to enable them to be superior to others.”

Racheli shrugged. “All right,” she said. “Maybe that’s true. But it seems to me that you’re ignoring the importance of skills.”

Gila retorted, “And it seems to me that you are not looking deep enough into the factors that drive reality. Technical skills are important, but there is a reason that certain groups practice them more than others.”

“Look at this,” Gila said one day, when they left the warehouse tracking a terrible stench and discovered that the nearby creek was flooded with sewage. “Now do you understand why I say we didn’t insist enough on the rights of our sisters?”

“What do you mean!?” Racheli said. She had already learned that from Gila’s point of view there were no two subjects that could not be interconnected, and yet she still often found herself surprised by the odd turns in their conversations. “How is that related?” She asked.

“How is it related?” Gila was surprised. “How could it be otherwise!? That’s exactly the point. People are still living in the past and don’t understand that things have changed. People used to live in separate villages, and each region was economically independent. Then there was the state. People still think in terms of a state, but that’s not the reality. Instead of many villages, we all live in one village – and the village is one system. Everything you do flows back to you.”

“Okay, but what about women’s rights? What’s the connection there?” Racheli insisted.

“That is not a connection,” Gila said. “It is the heart of the matter. Look at people in our society. Do you think anyone in Israel cares that our sisters in Gaza have no rights? That they can be beaten and treated as property? Do you think anyone cares if people are tortured in North Korea or if people in China do not have basic rights? Not really. It’s not their problem.”

“But what does that have to do with this sewage?”

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that almost all environmental protection, animal conservation, and human rights organizations come from the same countries? And that this activity almost always comes from the roots, from civilian organizations, and not from governments or corporations? Imagine a world with three times as many such organizations, and governments that are involved in the issues, and corporations that know it is their duty to care for the environment. Don’t you see that the developments in these countries would eventually affect our own society? And this is just one small example. In this small village, everything comes back to you in the end.”

“And could we change this situation?” Racheli asked; trying to follow the twists and turns of Gila’s mind required considerable effort from her.

“Of course we could. After all, we are the ones who gave the power to oppressive countries and irresponsible corporations. We established an assembly of nations, but we included not only representatives of nations, but also those who oppress nations. We see the Chinese government as a legitimate interlocutor even though China is actually controlled by a small group, an oppressor. The oppressor has become their official representative. We trade with countries that deprive our sisters of their rights, even though we only strengthen their oppressors and stop trading with them only when it interferes with our selfish interests. We accept the oppressors as equals. We created this situation, we gave them the power, and in the end we will all also pay the price.”

Racheli fell silent. She wanted to say something, but Gila’s voice, which was almost always calm and content, now had a different, agitated tone.

They stood and looked at the river polluted with sewage.

Racheli was not the first to come to the store and stay sheltered underneath Gila’s wings for a long period, but no one before her had seen Gila with eyes that were used to examining animals and their tracks for hours and understanding things from their point of view. No other ear that heard Gila’s words had spent countless hours attending to the sound of every bird and recognizing the difference between a warning call from a snake and one from a hawk. All the abilities Racheli had developed and perfected over years of patient observation and sharpened attention were now focused on Gila and her words. This enabled Racheli to recognize in her what others had not.

Every week, dozens of people came to talk with Gila. She welcomed them all with joy, tea, and cookies. She wrapped them all in her big and loving embrace. But in successive conversations and in sentence after sentence Racheli began to discern the intentions underneath the words. The more she listened, the more she learned that Gila’s responses were not accidental or spontaneous: they were stitched together with the hand of a craftsman who secretly steered the conversation to the place Gila wanted to reach. Suddenly even her hugs seemed to Racheli calculated and timed, aimed at achieving a result.

Racheli was fascinated by this. She accessed the computer in the office and looked for details about Gila on the Internet, but found nothing that she didn’t already know. Was she married? Did she have a family? Where did she grow up? Gila’s past never came up in their conversations, and Racheli – always thorough – was unable to glean additional information even after much effort.

A conversation with a random visitor to the store led her in the right direction.

It turned out that he knew Gila before she opened the store. At that time – he casually mentioned – her name was Zohar. Zohar Bar-Haim. From that moment on, information flowed easily from the computer: there were articles, documents and photos. One photo caught Racheli’s eye in particular: Gila, in her early thirties, slim and well made up, wearing a tailored suit and high heels. Racheli stole a glance over the monitor at the heavy woman sitting in the office engrossed in a book, wearing a large, faded t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. Her gray hair was gathered back and well combed, but it seemed that a hairdresser hadn’t touched it in years. Is this the same woman?

More and more bits of information were woven into the story. Gila had been well known in the business community as a young CEO of an investment firm that had significantly increased profits after a large cut in the number of employees. After that, she was appointed vice president of a large bank – and a year later she simply disappeared. There was no trace of her existence on the net after that.

When you look carefully at the movement of an animal, its voice and its predilections, you begin to see a pattern. At first everything is jumbled up, the image is blurry, but then sound emerges from noise, the sights organize themselves into patterns, and suddenly you can complete the animal’s movements in your imagination, predict what it will do and follow where it’s going even while running. The animal that Racheli was observing now was Gila, and the pattern that emerged from her movements was fascinating. Gila never asked anyone to do anything for her, but Racheli noticed that after of a conversation with her, almost every person would decide of their own accord to do what Gila had led them to. Sometimes it was to reconcile with a family member or a partner, sometimes to overcome an old fear and walk the path that should have been taken years before. As the days went by, Racheli got better at identifying in advance where Gila was taking the person before her, and understanding the dance of words that she danced.

One evening they were both organizing the shelves with the baby clothes. Gila’s hands seemed to dance gracefully. Racheli worked alongside her in sharp, economical movements.

“You know,” Gila said, “this has always been my curse. This ability of mine to lead people to the places I wanted them to go, to see in advance the paths of the conversation and direct people to them, to read and understand people.”

Racheli did not look at Gila, but she felt her muscles tense. What did Gila know about her observing her?

“When I left their world, that rat race, I chose to reinvent myself,” Gila continued. “I hated the ability of mine to lead people, and I tried to run from it, erase it. But after many years I realized that I could not run from myself, from who I am. I realized that my only choice was to use my ability in my own way. That is the difference between a blessing and a curse. Today I see it as a blessing.”

Racheli’s heart pounded. How did she know? Racheli’s hands stopped moving. Did Gila intentionally reveal to her what she had done? Had she led her to where she wanted? Who had been watching whom? Racheli froze. Gila’s hands continued to dance lightly between the shelves.

Racheli rose from the coals and got to her feet. Thinking of Gila had given her strength. In the course of all the months they had spent together, Racheli found that with Gila she could be herself without fear of criticism or disappointment. On the contrary: Gila accepted everything with a motherly and loving embrace, and always seemed proud of what Racheli was capable of doing. Her home in Haifa was a two-hour brisk walk away. Would she be at home? Actually, Racheli thought, what did it matter? Where else can I go?

Years later, Racheli would realize that the decision to go to Gila’s house – made in the midst of the burnt forest, while smoke billowed on the horizon – was the most important decision she had ever made. At that moment, however, it did not seem like a conscious decision, but as the only option she had.

Racheli began walking briskly, which brought back the headache and the dizziness. She began to descend towards Haifa’s outskirts, her legs black with coal.

As soon as she entered the city, she slowed down – Haifa was empty. Several cars with broken windows stood on the side of the deserted road. The pungent smell of human excrement arose from every corner. Plastic bags and torn pieces of cloth were scattered on the streets and in the yards. Racheli passed between burnt houses and houses whose doors were broken and left open.

All around her was a deafening silence, but not inside Racheli’s head, which was still reeling from the blow from the rock and her thoughts. She walked in the middle of the sidewalk, numb and withdrawn, alienated from her surroundings. What had happened to mom? What about Osnat and Yosef? And the kids!? People she knew popped into her head one after another. What about Dror, Shiran, and the children? Racheli’s body began to tremble, and she stopped in her tracks. She was the one who had urged Dror to go to the forest, and he trusted her. What happened to them if they had taken her advice?

Suddenly she was hurled to the ground. Three men pinned her to the pavement. One of them leaned over her, his big belly in front of her face, and shoved a dirty cloth in her mouth. Racheli struggled with all her strength, and a heavy shoe landed on her stomach. She choked. The three attackers tied her hands behind her back and dragged her into a nearby building. Racheli twisted and kicked and almost got out of their grip, until the heavy shoe landed again. This time it hit her in the face. Blood poured out of her nose. Her strength was gone.

The three of them dragged her up the stairs, over furniture and household utensils, past dislodged doors. Her body suffered blow after blow. She breathed into the pain as Gila had taught her in the meditation lessons. She closed her eyes and focused on the point at the edge of her nose, following the ebb and flow of her pulse. When she calmed down, she began to feel the ropes and identified the weak points in the hastily tied cord. With a little effort she would be able to free her hands. While pounding up the stairs she noticed a knife sticking out of one of the men’s pockets. That’s how she will start.

Her plans were interrupted when she was thrown onto the floor in one of the rooms. One of the men, thin and wrinkled, began to pull her pants down. Racheli squirmed and struggled, to no avail. “Puttin’ up a fight, the bitch,” said the fat man. It was the first time any of them had spoken. It seems they had been afraid to make a sound in the open street, Racheli realized. “I’m first,” he added. The man standing next to him stared at him. The left side of his face was droopy and swollen. It was clear who was giving the orders. Racheli kicked hard at the thin man and slammed into the wall behind him. The other two looked at each other in surprise. Racheli twisted and tried to free her hands. Then a heavy sole landed on her face, time after time, again and again. Racheli tried to slip away, but another kick landed on her. The world went black.

Chapter 20

CITY OF GOD

A sharp pain in her shoulder woke Racheli.

She tried to move her hands, but they were still tied behind her back, stiff and motionless. She felt an intense sensation burning between her legs. She tried to look around. One of her eyes refused to open, at first. She felt the congealed blood on her face.

Racheli looked around. At first, she moved only her eyes, so as not to betray movement, and then, when she realized that there was no one in the room, she turned her head. She was lying in the middle of the room with no pants and no underwear. Next to one of the walls, a shattered wardrobe had collapsed on a broken bed. On the other side the door was open.

Racheli assumed that she was left unattended only because they thought she was dead or might die shortly. And she was bound anyway – still, maybe they were planning to return soon for another round? She had to act quickly and silently, assuming that they might hear her from the next room and that she had very little time.

But being cautious was difficult. Her head had been hit hard and felt as if it were going to explode. Her thoughts were slow and vague. The sharp pain in her shoulder blades was getting worse, and worst of all was the burning sensation in her groin. Up until that moment she had acted like an automaton, without thinking – if quiet movement and surveying the environment were not inherent in her, if they were not as natural to her as breathing, she would surely have screamed and squirmed. But she remained still and motionless even in great pain.

Still, the pain was increasing, and her ability to think clearly and act effectively was eroding. Her head was heavy and dizzy. In a short time, she realized, her thoughts will blur and she will act only out of pain. Then she will sigh, cry or squirm, and her captors will come to silence her.

That is not going to happen, she decided.

She took a deep breath. In her imagination she returned to the day she left the forest. Before speaking to anyone else, she went to Gila and into her warm and loving embrace. Gila listened with concentration and admiration to every detail about her time in the grove. Then they both went to the big supermarket, a few minutes’ drive from the warehouse, and practiced meditation standing between the shelves, amid the noise, while they shopped, compared prices and stood in line. It was their last meditation practice together.

Now, as then, Racheli took a deep breath and focused inward. She felt the pains and sensed them coursing through her. She focused even more. The pain was still there, but now it was further away. She positioned herself behind it, concentrated, then shifted her focus outward and opened her eyes slowly, clearer and sharper. Slowly she began to twist to restore blood flow and sensation to her hands. She moved her fingertips and focused on breathing to deal with the bursts of pain. Within a few minutes she was able to move her hands again, and turned to examine the rope. It was tight and cut the skin, but she managed to loosen one of the knots, and within a few minutes she had one hand free.

Even after she freed both her hands, it was several minutes before she was able to move them easily. The pulled back joints were stiff and painful. Then, in the moonlight coming in from the window, she examined the abrasive cuts the ropes had made in her joints.

Her head continued to throb. She tried to get up several times and failed. Finally, she dragged herself backwards and leaned against the wall. Then she saw the pool of blood in which she was lying. The clotted blood on her thighs completed the picture. He did me a favor with the kick in the head, she thought. At least she had been spared the memory of the moments of violence and humiliation.

Every movement required effort and made the pain worse, but finally she got to her feet and began to slowly move towards her bag, which lay open in the corner of the room. Her legs barely supported her, yet she advanced without making a sound, in measured and painful steps, to get to the bag. Then she pulled out the short-handled hand ax that lay at the bottom of the bag, well-hidden underneath the blanket.

Racheli made her way to the door. Her head was spinning. She leaned against the nearest wall and looked down. Blood was coming out of her. Soon, she knew, she would lose consciousness again. She advanced to the door of the room in complete silence. Peering through it, she saw the thin man crouching on the balcony looking out at the street in the moonlight. Is he a guard? Racheli did not know and did not care. She checked the living room and saw that no one else was there. The sound of muffled voices from one of the other rooms told her where the other two men were.

She crept up silently behind the thin man, who was still looking out at the street. Standing behind him, she raised the sharp ax and paused, her hand held above his head. She remembered the anguish she felt when she stabbed the boar with the short spear, but now she felt nothing. Everything was happening as if from a distance, like in a dream.

Her hand came down hard, without thought, all at once. The ax smashed into the skull with a cracking noise. Blood rose up around the blade and the thin man’s body dropped with the ax still stuck in him. Racheli tried to pull it out, but it was in there firmly. She pulled at the ax trying to free it, shaking the man’s head with it. The blade refused to be extracted from the convulsing body. Finally, she got it out forcefully with one strong pull. Her face and shirt were covered in a mix of blood and brain bits. She looked down at her body and the ax, both covered in blood, and felt nothing. Neither disgust nor anger, neither satisfaction nor consolation. In the plain white light of the moon, she felt as if she were watching an old silent movie.

In a slow and soundless movement, with the ax dripping blood in her hands, Racheli walked to the door behind her and listened to the whispers of the two remaining men. She tried to hear what they were saying as she moved forward, but the pain and fog in her head made it difficult. She leaned against the wall and looked inside. The two men were in a room that had been the kitchen. The man with a half-drooping face sat at a table with his back to her, relaxed. He was looking at the fat man, who was also standing with his back to her, his hands in the sink.

Racheli traversed the distance between her and the man in the chair in three strides and held the ax high in case he suddenly turned. He did not. This time, Racheli had learned her lesson: instead of smashing the ax blade into his skull, she struck diagonally into the neck. Quick in, quick out. Blood shot out of the man’s neck, and he collapsed to the floor with a dog-like whimper. Blood stained the kitchen wall. Racheli did not move or look down at the man, who was writhing on the floor.

The fat man turned; his eyes flashing with rage. In an instant he rushed at her, his hands reaching out. Normally, Racheli knew, she could have fought him off. She was strong and fast, and knew Krav Maga, but now it took all her strength just to stay on her feet. Even moving out of his way would not be enough, and if he crashes into her, she will be slammed to the floor. He wouldn’t have to do anything more to overwhelm her.

Everything slowed down around her. She regarded the fat man wearily, indifferently. She lifted the ax and with a light movement threw it at him. It lodged in the man’s chest and he folded as he ran, rolled around and landed on his back at her feet. Racheli had thrown the ax at logs hundreds and maybe thousands of times, sometimes while walking or running. It would thud into the wood with a muted sound and wait for her to pull it out. Now she stared at the ax embedded deep in the chest of the fat man who was gasping for breath. She peered into his face and he looked into her eyes. Red foam dripped from the corner of his mouth and he snorted and continued glaring at her. Racheli reached down and easily pulled the ax from his chest.

The man’s blood was bubbling. He said nothing as she drew the ax out, only emitting a low moan and continuing to look into her eyes. Blood bubbles dribbled from his mouth. She turned and shuffled to the door, stepping over the pool of blood that had poured out of the neck of the other man, who now lay motionless.

Racheli left the house by the stairwell, holding on to the railing for support, feeling pain with every step and bleeding profusely.

When she got out into the street she turned towards Gila’s house. Every step required all her strength. Exhaustion filled every sliver of her soul. The street was deserted. No one approached her. Even in the moonlight her figure was so menacing and disturbing that it was enough to deter any attacker. She moved forward with a crooked gait, trying to reduce the friction and pain. Her legs were black and her bare feet were covered in blood; her own, which continued to come out from between her legs, and the blood from the puddle of the others she had stepped in. Her face was swollen and dotted with shards of flesh and brain bits, and so was her shirt. The ax in her hands dripped with blood that fell into the cracks in the pavement.

But Racheli felt nothing, and gave not a glimmer of a thought of how she looked or who saw her. Her only desire was to reach Gila. She was losing more blood, and needed help. She didn’t know if she would be able to reach her destination; she needed all her remaining strength to keep her body moving and her legs in motion. One step and then another, in the struggle to continue along the empty road.

Through the blurriness and pain Racheli saw the empty street as a nocturnal hallucination bathed in pale light. A nightmare of torn bags, smashed furniture and mutilated bodies. She no longer knew what she was actually seeing and what she only imagined in her weariness and pain. The sight of bloated, rotting corpses did not disturb her, nor did the foul stench from all around. At the edge of the sidewalk, she saw the body of a naked woman with worms gnawing at her and pieces of flesh torn from her. Her stomach was mutilated and a dead fetus, purple and swollen, dangled from it. Racheli was neither disgusted nor frightened. She thought only of the next step, only of the next lifting of a leg. She did not know how much time had passed, she just moved forward with her remaining strength, barely able to hold on to the axe. When she finally reached Gila’s building, she tried to knock on the door, but her strength failed her. She felt herself falling and collapsed, her hands reaching out on the threshold of the house.

Chapter 21

GILA

She was wrapped up in cloth; soft fabric underneath and on top, and she was naked. Racheli kept her eyes shut so as not to give herself away. After a few moments of listening, she detected movement beside her. Someone was there. She must not show a sign, not stretch or tense her body. She remained still.

Moving her arms and legs a little, Racheli discovered that she was not tied up and was lying on a mattress, covered with a blanket. No clothes on her body, but it wasn’t sticky. She no longer felt the clotted blood. She was clean. Finally, she opened her eyes to a slit and looked around. When she realized where she was, she opened them completely. Gila was standing nearby with her back to her, stirring the contents of a bowl that was on a small table.

The place was tiny – one room that had once served as a student apartment. The bedroom was also the living room, but despite its dimensions, it had always been full of life. Everyone knew that you could come to Gila’s apartment at any hour for a soft mattress and something to eat. The place was sparsely furnished: a small, folding dining table, a few plastic chairs and a small bed, and next to them piles and piles of books. Gila was always glad to lend them and always hunting for new ones. The bed Racheli was lying on was soft and clean, and from the contact of her head with the pillow she realized that her skull had been bandaged. Some of the wounds still hurt and others stung, yet a pleasant feeling washed over her. She tried to speak, but no sound came out of her mouth. She gathered her strength and finally managed to whisper, “Gila.” Gila raised her head. “My child has woken up!” she said. Her big arms wrapped around Racheli and she gathered her into her lap.

“My child, my amazing one,” she murmured.

“Gila…”

“Yes, love?”

“Can I have some water?”

Gila rushed to the kitchen and returned with a jug. Racheli sat up with an effort and drank glass after glass and lay down again. They looked into each other’s eyes. Gila did not ask how she had been hurt, while Racheli felt that for her part, she did not want to know what had happened in the city and how things had deteriorated so badly. They just stared at each other, until once again Racheli fell into a deep sleep.

For three days they hardly spoke. Gila had seen Racheli’s wounds when she cleaned and dressed them. There was no need to say anything about them. On the third day, when Racheli got out of bed and went to the table, the conversation between them slowly began to unfold, punctuated by bursts of laughter and interspersed with moments of silence.

On the evening of the third day, Gila began packing a large rucksack. Racheli observed Gila’s dancing hands putting a water jug, food and other items into it.

“Why the backpack?” Racheli finally asked. Gila did not look up and continued the packing dance with her nimble fingers. “It’s too dangerous to stay here,” she said. “People are roaming the streets. It’s only a matter of time until they reach us, and soon there won’t be any locked doors left. Besides, food and water here are running out. We have to move. Look for somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? Where?”

“Before the connection was cut off,” said Gila, “when it all started, there were some men who settled themselves at the Maharal vineyard. They began gathering water supplies and food and spoke about shelters. With the connection cut off I can’t reach them anymore, so I don’t know what happened to them, but the vineyard is a good place to start. In any case, we need to move.”

Racheli was horrified. “Gila, there are no more forests to hide in. Everything has burned. Who knows what is left in the Maharal vineyard. I’m not sure there’s anywhere to go at all.”

Gila looked at Racheli. Her eyes surveyed the strong features of the young face, lingering on an old scar line that crossed one of the eyebrows. Then Gila’s eyes suddenly widened. With a pensive look on her face, her gaze went down to the floor. She knew where she was taking this conversation. “You think there is a chance that they are still there?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Racheli. “But even if they are, they won’t be able to survive for long.”

“Razi and Uri are there,” Gila said. “They are great at stealth and camouflage, and also in hunting and gathering. Why won’t they survive?”

Racheli smiled bitterly. “Those guys who are used to talking about connecting to the life force in the earth? Who practice yoga and want to spread love all around? Them? In this world of fire and hatred? I give them a month – if they’re lucky.”

“So, who is going to survive?”

“As is always in evolution, biological or social, whoever is more suited to the situation. Whoever knows how to adapt.” Gila looked at Racheli as she spoke and her heart sank. Racheli’s eyes were grim and gray. The spark that had always burned in them was no longer there. “In a world of fire, the one who survives is the one who knows how to fight the enemy without mercy and to sacrifice everything if necessary. To survive at any cost. To sacrifice without thought or feeling emotion about anything that gets in the way of victory.”

Gila knew what she was getting at, but every word tore a piece of her soul out of her. “But there is a chance they can, isn’t there? There is…hope.”

“Maybe... if they do what must be done.”

“What? What must be done?”

Now it was Racheli who looked down at the floor. The words came out of her mouth on their own, as if she were a machine spewing out blunt pieces of plastic. “First of all, they have to disappear into the fields, and not be seen. That is number one. Then they have to get food by stealth, and also start producing their own food while in hiding. They must gather weapons and people around them; and those people have to be trained. They will have to learn to work together as a cohesive group; that will be their main advantage against their adversaries and enemies – in a state of chaos, those better trained and organized will win. That was how the Macedonians defeated the Persians, who were much greater in number than they were. That was how the Romans defeated the Gauls.”

“But how do they do that?” Gila asked. “In a burnt-out forest it’s impossible to hide.”

“They have to rely on attack; create a well-protected area and then sneak out of it and eliminate anyone who approaches the area. The right training can compensate for the numerical disadvantage. Without it, they won’t survive.”

Racheli’s face twisted in pain. Maybe she was picturing her friends struggling with the grim reality, Gila thought; the women raped, the men murdered… She started to reach out to hug Racheli, but stopped herself.

Her body stiffened. She wanted to gather up the girl in front of her, wrap her arms around her and embrace her. Her heart went out to the girl. But lives were at stake. Finally, she collected herself and said calmly, “You are right... Uri and Razi won’t know how to do that; maybe no one will.”

“Someone will know,” Racheli said. The seeds planted in her when she left three bodies lying bloody and dead in the gutted house had begun to sprout. “Me.”

Only one backpack was on the floor. Racheli looked at it now. Gila had packed it, and Racheli picked it up without any objection. Since the beginning of their conversation, she had known where Gila was leading her, and she let her do it – one last time.

She observed Gila’s heavy breathing and her parched lips. Suddenly she realized: Gila had not drunk water the entire day. She saved the water to give to her. The reservoir was not about to run dry, it already had. The water Gila had packed was all that remained in the house. The water she had used to cleanse Racheli’s wounds when she lay unconscious was drinking water she had been saving for herself.

Racheli looked into Gila’s eyes. She looked, and in her mind returned to the apartment and to the three murdered rapists; to her broken, sore, and insulted body. Suddenly all was silent. She continued looking into Gila’s eyes but suddenly felt nothing, neither sadness nor anger, neither joy nor disgust. She felt nothing, and only knew what she had to do. What she had been through with those men, she realized, had prepared her for her new duties no less than the years of exploring and stealth, no less than serving as an infantry instructor in the army. This was the missing piece in her soul.

“I’m going,” she finally said, laying down the words they were both anticipating. “And I’m sorry, Gila, but you won’t be able to come with me.”

Gila looked at her in silence. She had known it, had planned it, yet her eyes filled with tears.

“You’re too slow. You don’t know how to conceal yourself or use stealth. If we go together, neither of us will make it. I cannot leave you the water, because I need it for the journey. Anyway, it wouldn’t have lasted very long.”

Gila nodded. She, who always knew how to lead the person she was with to where she wanted, had been using this burden to help people for half her life. This ability, which she had cultivated all her life, now bore the most important fruit ever – she had ignited the spark that would shine in the darkness. But never, in all her years, did she imagine that her last manipulation would lead to her own death.

She looked into Racheli’s eyes and saw in them neither sorrow nor anger, nor frustration nor pain. Tears poured down Gila’s face – what had she done to this girl? She fell to her knees.

Racheli no longer paid any heed to Gila. She turned and bent to the backpack. “Racheli?” Gila said, but Racheli did not turn. That name was no longer hers. She knew Gila was not the only one she had to leave behind. Zohar! She suddenly remembered. It had been Gila’s former name – and from now on, she decided, it would be hers. She paused for a moment, getting used to the new name, and flung the rucksack on her back.

Gila knew there was no point in speaking to Racheli anymore. The young woman she had known was no longer. She breathed deeply and her words rose into the space of the room, quiet and clear: “All my desire is to shine for a moment. My whole life will have meaning and value if I have helped rays of light to rise and the sun to shine. For great light is composed of thousands of sparks that ignite for a brief moment. May my life be a spark of this light.”

ZOHAR

Chapter 22

SUNRISE

The first thing I saw was a ceiling from which the plaster had peeled off.

Where am I?

I slowly looked around, without moving. I was in a room with the door closed. We rarely used the old buildings – they were cold and less comfortable than the shelters – but this room was cozy, and light entered through a window behind me.

My head hurt and felt heavy. My shoulder had been dressed with a bandage of leaves placed there with a gentle hand, neither pressing too tightly or too loose. The odor told me that a paste of medicinal plants had been applied to the wound. It no longer burned. How much time had passed?

I was not bound or restricted in any way. Didn’t the Easterners expect me to wake up? I felt the mattress. It was made of woven leaves, like all the mattresses on the mountain. Did the Easterners bring it from the shelter? I examined my body. It was clean. Someone had run a wet cloth over me while I was asleep. Certainly, it couldn’t have been the Easterners. Maybe one of our women they had taken captive? That would explain the gentle treatment and the carefully constructed bandage.

I turned my head. When I saw her, my whole body stiffened.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the wall, and was engrossed in reading. A smooth silvery braid was draped over her right shoulder. The wrinkles on her face and an old scar that crossed one of her eyebrows could not hide the softness and purity embedded in her pleasing countenance nor the power in the blazing green eyes.

I was stunned. I had seen her from a distance a few times, but never this close. In Hell, the commanders talked a lot about her. They called her “The Living Legend.” Every Zaharon’s dream was to excel so that he would be included in the small unit that served alongside her and helped her in her missions. When we failed, the commanders would say that Zohar was ashamed of us. When we succeeded, we hoped that if she saw us, she would be proud. After the larger community in the south merged with us, Zohar moved some women and Zaharonim there to teach them and make us one cohesive group. After that they decided to change the name and became the Southern Zohar.

The stories of the first days of defense of the mountain were tales of heroism that I had heard repeatedly since I was a child. And now the legend herself sat cross-legged before me, her soft braid on her shoulder, reading. Am I dreaming? The word barely emerged. I slowly rolled it around in my mouth. “Zohar?”

Slowly the eyes were raised, until the green fire met mine. I was self-conscious and looked down. When I sat up, her eyes were still looking at me.

A broad smile lit up her face. “You did great work, Ohr, great work.”

“Great work?”

“Your idea to breach the mountain openly was brilliant,” she said, “and I am glad they didn’t find a qualified commander in your place. Your lead was excellent, the choice of position was perfect and so was the preparation.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said. “Yinon chose the place in opposition to my opinion, and the fortifications were also suggested by others.”

“That is exactly what it means to be an excellent commander,” she replied. “To listen, consult, gather information and act decisively.”

“Did any of the others with me survive?”

“No,” she said simply. “Those who did not shine in battle chose to shine immediately when the Easterners broke into the post.”

I did not speak. I felt a bittersweet happiness for the Zaharonim who had been with me.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Zohar said after a moment. “I was impressed by what you did at the emergency storage depot after Ido shone on the fence.”

I stared at her. How did she know all this?

“What you did saved us all; your strategy will change the face of the region for hundreds of years.”

“Then… we succeeded?”

“Greatly,” she answered. “They were close to breaking into the tunnels. Without you, the Zaharonim would not have been up the mountain in time. Without your actions Sa’id would have defeated us.”

“But how am I still alive?”

She sighed. “As always... good fortune. During the battle they concentrated forces up there and left other areas with very little security. A large force of Zaharonim, almost one quarter of them, crept through the open areas, and in the noise and chaos you created, managed to advance and even deploy before the attack.”

“But… how did they save me?”

“In essence, it was Sa’id who saved you. When we attacked his rear position, three snipers targeted him. One of them got him. We were outnumbered, but the surprise and death of Sa’id was enough to scatter them. You were no one’s concern anymore and you just lay under Sa’id’s dead body, behind the positions.”

“So, the mountain is ours again? Did we eliminate all the Easterners?”

“Some of them were killed on the mountain. As I said, most of the Zaharonim didn’t go up the mountain, so that the force would not be too big and be discovered. Those who didn’t were spread out around the mountain. They took care of any Easterners who fled. We left no one alive.”

For a moment I thought about the child soldiers I had yelled at when entering the mountain. Mere kids who hadn’t carried a gun until a few weeks before.

“So, the battle is over?”

“No. The women are still scanning the mountain, to make sure there isn’t anyone in hiding.”

“The women? Why not the Zaharonim?”

“We asked them to sleep, eat, rest and get ready to leave.”

“Are we going out again? Where?”

“A situation has arisen in the region that has never existed before. The armies of the Southerners and the Desert Dwellers have been almost completely wiped out. At least to such a degree that they do not pose a threat in the near future. The Jordanians were also dealt a heavy blow, and it will take time for them to recover. The Northerners were defeated by the Easterners. It will be years before they will be able to fight again. As for the Easterners themselves... well, they don’t really exist anymore. Almost every man or boy who survived their battles against us and against the Northerners was killed on the mountain. Sa’id gambled it all, and lost.

“Now is the time to change things in the region,” Zohar continued. “Every one of our women has more than ten surviving children. Every meter of land, of high or low quality, is being used to its fullest for the plant beds, both here on the mountain, and in the south. Our reproduction rate is three times greater than any enemy in the region. It seems that of all the learning groups, the ones dealing with medicine and hygiene were our most important military force.”

She laughed. I looked at her intently as she spoke; comfortably and lightly, but what she did not say was more interesting than what she did say: she did not say Southern Zohar or Northern Zohar. Didn’t she like the names?

“We’re expanding our territory and realigning the area,” she continued.

“Expanding? To where?”

“To the south – a little south of the southern mountain, on a line from the Jordan Valley to the sea. The route will not be straight, we have chosen the locations best suited for observation and defense. In practice, all of Samaria will be in our hands. In the north, we will reach the mountains above the valley of Beit HaKerem, between north of the Sea of Galilee and the ruins of Acre. In the north, as well, borders will be determined according to our ability to defend them and build solid positions. In a few years, the Southerners, the Northerners and the Jordanians will raise a new army, but by then our positions will be fortified, our forces will adapt to the new framework, and thanks to our birth rate, there will be many more Zaharonim to join us. We also have the opportunity to open all the emergency storage depots. Our equipment will also be more advanced than theirs.”

So ‘Zaharonim’ she did say. What’s the difference, as far as she’s concerned? Her face was calm, and I was barely listening. I asked myself why it was that she had chosen to be here with me.

“Mothers who have many daughters will get their own shelter in the new territories, and the Zaharonim will help in the construction of the new plant beds in the coming year. In the south, the women were unharmed – only a few were injured in the holding battle in the north.”

I held my breath.

“Your Hannah is fine,” she said.

We were quiet. How did she know about Hannah? What else did she know?

“That’s a lot of changes,” I said, finally.

“More than you think. And this is just the beginning – we are establishing a new alliance,” said Zohar. “An International Alliance of Democratic Regions.”

“International?”

“We are trying to renew trade, help each other with knowledge and also provide mutual military support. This will give everyone in the alliance a huge advantage against those against us, and in the end, it will lead to prosperity and the return of technological knowhow. We will come back little by little; get the machine moving again...” she sighed sadly.

“International alliance,” I said. I had never heard of anything beyond our region. Why was she telling me this? On the mountain everyone must be busy with feverish preparations. The commanders and regional administrators must be holding briefings and assigning tasks. Zohar should be busiest of all, yet here she sits, talking to me.

“Yes, an international alliance,” Zohar repeated. “It will be made up of those groups who meet three conditions: democratic elections, full equality for women and minorities – and freedom of expression and organization. We will have a joint committee to annually examine each member of the alliance, and those who do not meet the conditions will be required to change or leave the alliance.”

“That will be a great advantage for us,” I finally said, without expression, so as not to betray the many questions I had.

Zohar nodded. “I have to go,” she said, “but there is one last thing. Most of the North and South’s Zaharonim survived, but many died, including commanders. We saw how you acted; saw your planning and execution.”

I looked at her. I suddenly realized where she was going.

“I know you are much younger than the usual age,” she continued, “but from my experience you will be one of our best commanders.”

I wasn’t glad or afraid, feeling neither responsibility nor pride. I had only one thought in my head: a thought of a little girl.

“Zohar...” I said after a moment’s silence, “Can I ask you a personal question? Is that alright?”

“Of course,” she smiled.

“Why don’t you have any partners? I mean, is it because of the impression it would have on the Zaharonim?”

Zohar burst out laughing, a hearty laugh that filled the room. For a moment I saw before me a young woman with a strong temperament. “It’s always amazed me, the drivel they spread about me,” she finally said. “What do I care about any impression on the Zaharonim!? I’ve always done what was needed, and making an impression was never my problem. It didn’t interest me before the flood, and it certainly doesn’t interest me after it.”

My stomach tensed. On the mountain we don’t talk about life before the flood. Everyone knows that.

“You’re talking about before the flood,” I said quietly.

“Why not?” Zohar said. “I never understood that stupid custom. Why not speak about it? Senseless customs pop up, and people blindly obey them.”

“But you are the one who initiated the name changes after the flood,” I insisted. “Everyone who was born before the flood changed their name because of you.”

“Because of me!?” She said, her eyes flashing. “Not at all! I changed my name for my own reasons, and suddenly everyone around me changed theirs, then others did the same and another stupid custom was born. Such nonsense.”

I looked at her. “All the women on the mountain choose the partners they want, but everyone knows that Zohar…”

“There are things that happened in the flood,” Zohar interrupted me and the smile left her face, “that cannot be undone.”

I kept quiet. I felt I made a mistake. I had always admired Zohar, like everyone else, but now she had become even greater in my eyes. Her presence instilled in me security and calm, but one thought did not let me rest: a thought of a little girl.

“Where do I have to be and when?” I asked.

“At central headquarters, in two days. Your injury is not serious, and you have had enough rest. You have a lot of work ahead of you and we don’t even have time to train you fully. There are too many things to do, and time is short. You will have to enter the position and organize your unit on the fly. In the meantime, two days will be enough for you to meet with Hannah and go to your shelter to part from the mother and sisters. In four days, we will finish organizing things. We will need three weeks to establish our hold on the whole area and set up observation and defense positions. Then we’ll begin setting up the shelters and plant beds.”

She rose to her feet and headed for the doorway.

“Zohar.” I spoke quickly.

She stopped and turned to me.

“There is one more thing,” I said and Nazir’s face appeared before my eyes.

Zohar tilted her head and examined me.

“There is a little girl in the Southerner village in the Jezreel Valley, near the ruins of Mizra,” I said. “Her name is Shahida. Her brother was a teacher we recruited from the Easterners. I want to bring her to the mountain.”

Zohar came closer to me and examined me curiously. “Why?”

“She is a special child. I know the games she plays and what foods she likes to eat. I know the songs that are sung to her at bedtime...”

Zohar was silent, still looking at me. Her gaze concentrated.

“I want to bring her before we clear the territories we captured from the east, south and north,” I said as quickly as I could get the words out. “I want to bring her to the mountain. Hannah will raise her like a daughter. I know she will agree.”

Zohar leaned towards me. She reached out and gently touched my shoulder. “Hannah would be a wonderful mother,” she said quietly, “but it’s a terrible idea. I don’t understand why this girl is important to you; but be that as it may, our culture is very different from hers. It’s hard to make such a drastic change, to adopt a foreign culture and foreign values. It won’t work. She will suffer. She should stay with her parents, with her family.”

“She has no parents,” I said. “They don’t know it yet, but we know they are already dead. After we kick them out of the area, they will go to the north and they will have no land and no property. We know the Northerners; they will have no mercy on them. She will see her family die of hunger and cold, and if she’s lucky and looks pretty, she’ll be sold as a slave to an older man.

“Zohar, I’ll always be a loyal commander. I know why we do what we do, I know we are right, and I will give it my all. Like all Zaharonim, I would also shine gladly. I ask only this: in these two days, let me bring her here. I won’t be late. If necessary, I will give up saying goodbye to the mother and sisters.”

“Ohr, there are many Shahidas. It is impossible to save all of them, and our job is to make difficult decisions. One Shahida can cost us hundreds of Shahidas. Sometimes mercy is cruel.”

Nazir’s eyes rose and peered into mine. “I’m not asking for all of them,” I said. “I only ask for this one girl.”

“What do you want to do? Kidnap her? How do you think she will react? What will you tell her? She’ll want to go back to her family.”

She was right of course. I did not think about that.

“I don’t know, I haven’t planned it all yet, but whatever happens, it will be better than a girl being raped by the Northerners because her father sold her for food.”

Zohar rose. Her face was grim. She did not look at me.

“Hannah is pregnant,” I said. “They will grow up as siblings.”

Zohar peered at me. She must have been surprised because of Hannah’s age.

“She is a little girl. It will be difficult for her at first, but Hannah will care for her; she will hug her at night, and they will cry together. Then, very quickly, she will play with the other children and be happy again, and in a few years, there will be no trace of sadness left. She will have a loving family.”

Zohar raised her eyes and looked into mine.

“My specialty is the Easterners,” I said, “and there are no more Easterners. I no longer have expertise on the mountain, but I know their culture, and their way of thinking, and language. I will be able to help her make the transition.”

“Your request is denied,” Zohar said stiffly. “You will arrive at central headquarters in two days. We have much work to do.” She turned and headed for the door.

“Zohar...” I whispered. She stopped with her hand on the handle.

“Sometimes the whole world is worth the life of one little girl,” I said. “Let her play with the children on the mountain between the plant beds. Let her live.”

Zohar stopped for a few seconds with her hand on the handle and then turned it.

The door closed behind her.

Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t know why I cried. Maybe because I haven’t shone, maybe because my body was tired and bruised, and maybe because I missed Hannah so much. The tears kept falling and I did not try to stop them.

In two days, I would be at headquarters after saying goodbye to my mother, the sisters and Hannah. Zohar was right. There was not always time for one little Shahida. It was her job to make the tough decisions and I respected her for that.

I heard footsteps approaching from the corridor and hurried to wipe away the tears.

The door opened and two Zaharonim I didn’t know entered. “Danny,” said one of them, and gestured to his friend, “and this is Yogev. We are from Zohar’s unit.”

I looked at them in admiration. Only those who were the best, better than the commanders, were accepted into Zohar’s small unit. Besides shining, it was the greatest honor for a Zaharon on the mountain.

“It is an honor to meet you.” Danny continued. “You and your men saved us all; it was a brilliant operation. We understood from Zohar that we are in your command for the next two days… and that our mission is to bring a little girl here from a Southerner village?”

I could not hold them back; again, the tears.

For a moment I could not say anything. Finally, I caught my breath. “I need a few minutes to get ready,” I said. “We will leave in ten minutes, straight to the village. In the meantime, please prepare backpacks for one day of fast walking. That will be enough.”

They left the room and I was alone, and no longer crying. From now on there will be no more time for tears.

Outside the room, Zohar heard the footsteps receding in the corridor. She moved away from the door and her bright green eyes looked straight ahead. The sun had risen over the horizon, and the sky was blue and cloudless. She looked at the rising light of dawn and a thin smile appeared on her face.

Sunrise.

Light a candle in the tent of my black heart,

From North to South may it shine its light,

And make glorious day from darkest night.

Acknowledgements

This book came into being as a complete surprise to me.

I had not planned on writing it, but it insisted on being written. Considering the fact that I have never believed in such statements from other people, my sense of surprise has not faded up until this very moment – when the bulk of the work is behind me, and what remains is mainly the pleasure of thanking all the wonderful people whose skills, knowledge and generosity I was privileged to benefit from during the writing.

First and foremost, thanks to Shiri, my beloved wife, who read the work and supported me all along the way, listened patiently and commented with sensitivity, honesty and intelligence. Thanks to Niv, Larry and Larina for their sharp eyes. They read and commented with great attention and care, opened my eyes to new pathways for me to think about.

A big, big thank you to Asaf Schurr, who was not only my editor, but first and foremost a real partner in the thinking and planning, and plotted significant parts of the book with wisdom, talent and compassion. I cannot imagine this book, or any other I have written, without his guidance and sensitive hand.

Of course, a very special thank you to Jerry Hyman for his creative and diligent translation.

And a final thanks goes to Gila. To me, this is her book from start to finish. I won’t deny that I had a role in the process – yet most of the time I felt I was merely the writing hand. And she is also the one who urged me to write….

If you will it, it is no dream.