Fathers and Sons

Fiction - a short story from Israel

Moving silently like the soft wind on that spring day, he made his way down the trail that circled past the rose bushes, under the wisteria and around the lemon tree that led to the gardening shed. This was the perfect spot to get away from the others, to look at the scene from the outside, and try to understand the tingling sensation shooting up through his body from the tips of his toes.

Once stationed and in place, his mind momentarily brought back from the grave his old, dead great grandmother. Long ago, this withered old woman was the one to explain to him about toes that would go numb all of the sudden.

“Some might think it’s just your blood gone thin”, the old woman had told him when he was young as she held him with her withered hands, “But remember! It is a sign, plain as day, telling you that you need to stop and think! Something is going on. You are being warned!” Searching his eyes, she arched her eyebrows dramatically and nodded her almost hairless head. He didn’t truly understand the sign she had just made, but it sure made him pay attention.

Little did she know, since she had long left this world, but this seemingly old wives’ tale had saved his life once, and not just his, but the lives of those under his command.

14 men marched behind him on that ink black night through the Bekaa Valley, deep in Lebanese territory when he suddenly stopped the line with a sign of his hand. The numbing of his toes ached and they all waited as he signaled air surveillance. He received a message that all was clear. He breathed deeply and ordered a sweep, knowing full well how dangerous this could be. On the third sweep, they picked up just the slightest movement. Giving his men new orders, his soldiers moved like wraiths and surrounded the ambush waiting for them. Silently, they crawled until they could hear their enemy’s breathing, and with knives, took out six Hezbollah men who were waiting in ambush and continued to their mission.

Now, here, under that spring sun, he felt it again, albeit in a much more mundane setting. Or was it?

From behind the shed, he looked at the scene, some twenty or so guests in the main garden, several of them fluttering around Ruth like butterflies. Others were casually standing or sitting in small groups, holding plates, or drinks. Young, in their late 20s, all of them from the more or less the same social setting; good upbringings, good educations and good jobs. He looked at them with a wistful smile. You might even believe that there were not several hostile countries and their even more hostile proxies praying for their destruction 5 times daily just about 10 kilometers from where they stood.

But that had nothing to do with the prickling electricity shooting through him, did it?

He stared at Ruth, stationed in the center, captivating all of their attention. With her white summer dress, her hair glowing in the sun, her hands lazily, but constantly caressing the slightly protruding stomach, she seemed as if from a different world.

Beneath those hands, inside that womb, his baby was becoming a human being. The first of their group of close friends to be pregnant, Ruth had become like a queen to them.

His gaze went from face to hands to stomach, and suddenly, he realized what was wrong. It wasn’t Ruth, it wasn’t the baby, and it wasn’t his friends. It was himself. He was the problem. In a flash that physically jolted him, he didn’t even need to think. He knew.

Even next to his well-off friends, he had grown up in a privileged life setting. Affluent families were still rare in the then young State of Israel, and his family had been not only wealthy, but influential also. Important people, all of those who ran this tiny little country of one million Jews, their coming and going in his home were a daily routine for him. Returning home from school to find the Prime minister chatting with his Father was nothing special to note. Minsters and MKs, foreign ambassadors and even heads of state were quite common.

They would arrive in a driven car, come down the private road, waiting to be let in at the guarded gate, all wanting to hear what his Father thought about the latest important events. Most people in his situation would became tainted, or hated - or both. They became greedy, or arrogant or slaves of the limelight, but not his Father. His Father was somehow above all that, and that was most likely the very reason for his aura. He was a mixture of success, intelligence, humility with a strong common sense that had the ability to amaze. The all begged him to join in and “get his hands dirty” by entering politics, but he loved his business, and he loved his family and knew that he was much more effective, and safe, by working from the outside.

Since he was a young boy, he looked on his Father with awe. He had long ago stopped trying to catch his Father in something that would make him look bad. Intolerant? Stingy? Boastful? Unfaithful? Nothing. He even had lots of time to spend alone with his young son. He was always treated as a person in his own right, always knew that he was loved and honored. There was never any doubt as to his Father’s sincerity.

All through his life, his Father loomed above him, like a cloud, always there, hovering in his mind, watching over every thought. Whenever he caught himself doing something wrong, it was not punishment he feared, but the sensing of his Father’s disapproval.

When his teachers praised him, he would not feel proud, when his friends wanted his attention, he never lorded it over them, knowing that his Father would never ever allow himself such cheap feelings.

Sometimes, his Father would travel, even for weeks, but he would never really feel that he was gone. He was always there, whispering to him, pushing him forward, and he would respond to him, explaining his life to him like a sports announcer in a play by play. His Father, being the man he was would have been appalled had he known or even suspected this, but his son couldn’t help himself. He had no alternative but to listen and obey.

Though his Father, with just one phone call, could have easily gotten him deferred or inducted into a safe unit, there was no question in anyone’s mind that after high school, just like everyone else, he would be inducted to the army. He volunteered and was accepted to a small but secret intelligence gathering unit. Like all soldiers, the young men he served with became his closest friends, the ones he knew would do anything for him, and he for them.

Several of these would soon be hard pressed to help him in his plans, but he knew he could count on them. They may not understand his reasoning, but they would assist him nonetheless.

In the next few months, just like the baby inside Ruth’s stomach, the feeling of such violent apprehension just grew and kicked and kept him up nights. Not that anyone could tell, he was always the attentive husband, he helped during the pregnancy, and laughed with Ruth, and showed his excitement. This was not out of any play acting, he was truly excited. The love he felt for his wife and the unborn child not only did not contradict his decision, but rather strengthened it. He could not allow his son to grow up like he had.

Two weeks before the baby was to be born, in the upmost silence that he was so well trained for, he slipped out from his bed and left the side of his wife, without even the slightest change in the rhythm of his breath. The Letter, he placed in a special box he had given her as a present, where she would surely find it.

Besides that short message, explaining what he was going to do, he had made sure nothing of him was left. No pictures, no personal affects and no memories. Without looking back, he withdrew from the house, into the garden where he met three of his closest friends from his unit. They looked at him and he back at them. Just as they had done several times far behind enemy lines, they nodded to each other and walked down the road silently to the car that waited for them in the shadows.

Thinking back, it was those memories of how he felt during his first days at kindergarten when the other children spoke of both a Mother and a Father that were his first. He could sense the pain of flesh being torn from him, a gapping blackness in his heart when the reality of not having a Father became clear to him. Running home to question his mother, seeing her distressed reaction, he, as a small boy, had decided never again to mention this Father.

To keep silent, of course, didn’t mean he didn’t wonder, just the opposite. He stole a small photo of his Father, one that he found in his grandparents’ house, standing and talking with several of His friends. He kept this black and white photo well hidden, and through the years, the picture was able to give him varied insights. Tall and rugged, you could tell from the look on his friends faces who among them was the leader. His Father’s face showed none of the arrogance that one would suspect, and that fact gave him pause. Was this because he knew himself so far above them? Or was he gifted with some way to make not only others at ease, but to be so himself?

Going through life, he gave no hint to the inside world he was living in. At school he progressed with ease, but interest. Boys looked for him to be a leader, and girls liked his unaffected self-assuredness. Ruth looked on with pride, wondering how the boy could handle himself, as if without a care in the world, so well he kept his inner feeling hidden, even from her. On the outside, he acted as if not having a Father was the most natural thing in the world.

His Grandfather, that impossible icon, that man who seemed more than a man to everyone else, could not seem to get close to his lone grandson. Secretly, well veiled, the boy hated his grandfather, and blamed him, in some intuitive way, for his own Father’s disappearance. A real father would have taken care of his child. A real Father would have done all he could. Periodically, he would come up with other things a real Father would have done for his son.

With all his money and all his influence, no one knew anything about his Father. People spoke of him, but he feigned indifference, and, feeling uncomfortable, they would change the subject. Maybe it best not to dwell, they would think, feeling an aching for the boy and knowing nothing they could do would help.

But he could hardly remember a minute when his Father was not with him. Would he be proud? What would he do? What book would he pick to read? Would he be angry that he did not help his Mother enough at home? As time went on, not only did this presence inside of himself become less, rather it became even more pronounced. Without even consciously thinking, every decision was based on what he thought his Father would have done and approved of.

From the outside, no one ever knew of this inner life of his, he kept it so well hid. He was an attentive son. He excelled in school, in the army, in business. He became the caring and loving husband and father he had always wanted, while secretly, inside, he never stopped looking for his own Father.

The art of deception ran deep and wide in this family, like an underground river that left no clues behind. Ruth, the one with the small knowing smile, the hair that glowed, the mother that kept faith with both Father and Son, she was the only one that knew the truth, a truth pregnant with irony almost too heavy to carry.