Literary interlude:Maayan Nevo in the 1920s
A bit of a foreshadowing, but the song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud0JZAGxq14 and the scene came into my mind and I just couldn't help myself….
Thousands of mercenaries to the sword gather inside a Mosque,
They discuss my fate but not with me
And my Neighbor's aunt just became a vice battalion commander
Or so said the wife of the father of my sister to me.
Oh my sister….
An armless man is groping for a sightless visionary in the dark
Says only he can avert a catastrophe
And from the streets of Kiev an ancient plague spreads to every town,
And a long lost brother finds his way to me
Oh my brother…
I lied when I wrote that here everything was so wonderful
Because Einstein just showed nothing at all was really true.
But in a world gone mad,
Where even the globe forgot that it was round,
All we can do is crawl into our own black hole.
London Bridge is burning down,
But the trains in Berlin are now on time
And hordes of refugees meet between Lodz and Poznan
So you and I have nothing left but hope
Oh, let us sing the hope
I lied when I wrote that here everything was so wonderful
Because Einstein has shown nothing at all is really true.
But in a world gone mad,
Where even the globe forgot that it was round,
All we can do is crawl into our own black hole.
Why does a stone thrown in Mecca stray away to me?
How does a stone thrown in Mecca stray away to me?
Just you and I are trapped inside a tiny box
And as we sing our hope others join us here to pray until the air is gone
I lied when I wrote that here everything was so wonderful
Across the world a thousand mercenaries to the sword battle in the dark
As an ancient plague takes a new form
I feel so wonderful
I feel so wonderful
We are the chosen people
We are the chosen few
So why politics now?
Maayan Nevo,
Unpublished poems
Port Said, Canal Zone, Egypt, 1925
"How long has she been like this?"
The crisp upper class British voice is jarring. She'd grown used to the harsh, Yiddish and Arabic accented Hebrew of her unit. She'd almost forgotten that she used to airily discuss the affairs of the commonwealth and the world, poetry and novels in French and in German and only occasionaly in the precisely pronounced Hebrew her literary collective cultivated.
But for now, and for the next six years, that is behind her.
"Almost two days."
She slowly opens her eyes. It's Shrulik of course. As the senior physician it's his job to look after the resident apprentices. And she had given him other reasons to be solicitous of her welfare once she realized he didn’t care about the scars and once he realized she required little from him but physical and mental diversion.
The British Laison she doesn’t recognize. He's not on the medical staff. But if the British rank insigna are anything like those of the Maccabees he's an officer and a senior one at that.
"Damn it, I told Alexandria that the way you were sending women here to do a man's work is criminal! I don’t care if your people cost half what it would cost to bring in Medical personnel from London. Calling a woman a doctor doesn't make her one and putting her to treat combat wounds is just asking for trouble. She had too much of it and fainted I suppose."
One of
them. Sneering down at
her. Helpless. Again. She won’t have it. She. Will. Not have. It.
She climbs to her feet, hastily wrapping her coat around her spare frame and clearing her throat.
"No. Not the wounded. It's my sisters. They were sent to fulfill their national service in the Gilad. There was a Wahabist raid. They… they were outside the stockade"
Shrulik rushes to her and starts to extend his hand before her frozen gaze stops him on his tracks.
" I've been treating the wounded to the satisfaction of all for the past year and I will continue doing so. I…regret my indispostion"
She voted for him after the ticket split of course. How else, when all the other candidates offered no solutions, no hope and little pride? When the calorie ration was cut again, and then again? Besides, whatever she had told her parents, he was the reason she made Aliya.
And she saw hints that he understood what set her and him and the others apart from
them. That he shared her secret thoughts. That the intelligent and creative needed to be rewarded, and that the dull and listless needed to be managed and contained rather than flattered and coddled.
And he was right, he had to be right. If he wasn't… well that meant it was all for nothing, didn’t it?
Would she still have written her sisters to come if she would have known what would happen? Would she still have voted for him if she knew where his policy would lead?
Of course she would have. There was no fate. Only decisions which had to be reached in the absence of full information. And the decisions she made were the correct ones. But what would she tell her father?
The British mumbles something indistinct under his breath.
She ignores him and turns to Shrulik.
"I will return to the patients momentarily. Give me a few minutes to freshen up."
Shrulik nods curtly.
"Good. That's good. We have some new arrivals. Copts from upper Egypt. Some of them are in pretty bad shape"
This time the British officer doesn't bother muttering under his breath.
"Whole country is in pretty bad shape. Whole bloody empire is a mess- and it wouldn't be if you lot hadn't stuck your noses where it didn’t belong!"
An Arabist then. Or maybe just an old school anti-semite. Or maybe neither. There were plenty of British, and a few Jews as well, who were critical of Zhabotinski's decision to intervene in the Mecca war, albeit indirectly, and blamed him for the fallout of the Zaidi takeover of the Kabba.
An old joke from Lvov flashes trough her mind.
Roman Dmwosky and the Nicholas III meet after the time of troubles to negotiate the boundaries of the grand duchy. Dmwosky warns Nicholas that if Lvov is not granted to Poland he will not be able to prevent angry poles from getting drunk, rioting in protest and carrying out a Pogrom which would drive Jews into Russia proper. "Well, say you get Lvov, what then?" Asks Nicholas. "Well if we do I obviously couldn’t stop Poles from celebrating the decision by getting drunk and carrying out a Pogrom- but I'll steer the refugees towards Hungary"
"What do you think would have happened if the Ikhwan would have won the Mecca war? Don't you think the victorious Mujahidin would have returned to Egypt and done even worse than they have?"
"That's as may be but I don't see as how we can know for certain. I know it was no business of yours to get involved".
When he turns to leave Maayan calls to him sharply at the door. "The Caloric value in the daily rations for a British soldier in Egypt is 4,800 calories"
"Well, what of it?"
"Before the Transjordan campaign my daily rations were 2,500 calories. And fifteen thousand people were landing on the Haifa docks every month"