“Tell those skinny boys to work as fast as they fuck,” he says. “I want fifty houses leveled. The school. The mosque. We are here to avenge, after all.”
One of the two has something to say. He is smaller and fairer and jumpier than the other, who is quite dark and quite large. This fidgety one, the General dubs “the second soldier.” To him, it’s always evident at a glance who is the leader and who the follower in any pair. It is about spirit, not size and not even rank. It is about which, in a critical moment, would act.
It is therefore surprising to the General when it’s the second who speaks up first.
“What about the villagers?” the boy says.
“What about what?” the General asks, a question for a question. He can see, even before number two answers, that his voice will be aquiver.
“To clear all those structures, sir. It will take time.”
The General points out into the night. “Go fetch a jeep and make some circles. Grab yourself another useless, matchstick foot soldier to drive you around.”
When the second, as is apparently his nature, looks hesitant, the General frames his mouth with both hands and tilts his head back. He is going to show them what to do. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” the General calls. “This is the time for surrender!”
His head still back, his hands in place, he raises an eyebrow and catches the soldiers’ gazes.
“Good then,” he says. “Like that. Nothing fancy. Any who remain already know we are here.”
This is the moment when they should excuse themselves and go. The first is already twisting a heel. But the second, wasting valuable time, cannot let it go. His voice turns shakier and bolder in equal measure.
“Is that enough?” the soldier says. “One circle with a jeep?”
The General studies this boy, who seems to be shrinking right in front of him. With fear in his voice—and it is not the fear of battle, it is not cowardice, but fear of the General himself—he seems suddenly so much smaller than he’d been.
“We have invaded a sovereign state for the purpose of mayhem,” the General tells him. “By now, not only is Jordan mustering her troops, but battalions as far away as Iraq must be readying themselves to see how big we plan on taking this fight.” The General pulls down the corners of his mouth, considering, and then his expression shifts to one of certitude as he agrees with his own assessment. “Yes, I would say if we aren’t eating breakfast at home by daybreak, it means all hundred and twenty-five of us are killed.”
The soldier listens, and the soldier blinks.
“Fifty houses,” the General says, to this bold second. “It’s you who’ll decide when the job is done and when your brothers are cleared to go.”
“But—” the soldier says.
The General silences him with a look. He reaches over to the first and, with a quick tug, yanks free the fresh stripes of promotion, stitched expertly to the boy’s sleeve. It’s nice needlework, so that the pulling leaves a giant tear.
The General can imagine this soldier eating kubbeh soup on the weekend in his pajamas, while his grandmother lovingly sews the patch onto her baby warrior’s uniform shirt. All of these fighters, barely grown.
The General hands the insignia to the number two. “Now you’ve got a new rank, like your friend here. The others will better listen when you wave this around. You can go search for hidden villagers until your heart sits right.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier says.
To the first, he says, “Set this house as well. When we leave, I want it to be nothing but dust.”
The General yells for his radioman, standing right outside, pacing at the threshold. Then the General heads back to the kitchen with his lantern, lazily pulling the curtain aside just as if he were in his own home. He takes a little glass thimble from where it sits on a shelf. He pours himself the coffee, thick as oil. Even before the cup fills, the smell of sweet cardamom reaches his nose.
More than anything it is Qibya they can’t forgive him, and it is Qibya that he recalls sitting in the chair in his living room, sipping from the tea that rests on the Egyptian copper tray Lily has converted into a side table.
He does the math—October now, and Qibya, it’s almost exactly fourteen years ago.
Not until 1967, and the miracle of their six-day victory, did anyone dare treat him like a hero again. Fourteen years. That’s how long it took for him to be welcomed back into the fold.
Forget Lazarus and his four days, the General thinks. This was a resurrection.
In Qibya, he’d razed a good part of the village.
From Qibya, he’d returned without losing a man.
Then the call came from Lavon. Not congratulations from the defense minister. Not kudos on a successful mission—the riskiest, boldest ever pulled off by their fledgling state. All he heard through the phone was, “What have you done?”
A massacre, is what Lavon said. Women and children. And again the refrain, “What have you done?”
The General finds Lily out brushing the horses. She feeds her favorite apples and carrots while the General explains.
“It appears” is the phrase the General uses to tell his wife. “It appears the Arabs were hiding in the houses. Women and children,” he says, “as the saying goes.”
“All women and children?”
“Among the dead there were many. The Arabs always inflate the numbers, but they’re saying sixty-nine all told. The full count.”
“It’s tragic,” she says. “This bloody, endless tit for tat.”
“It is,” says her husband. “It is.”
Ben-Gurion almost immediately denied it—denied him—to the press. The old man told the world, “Vigilantes! It was our poor Jews of Arab Lands, our Holocaust survivors. They live on our borders and suffer attacks without end. What can I do? They take matters into their own hands. An uprising gotten out of hand.”
The General knew it would sound as ridiculous to the world as it sounded to him. Angry Israeli civilians with mortars and mines? Angry Israeli villagers crossing into Jordan in darkness, carrying enough explosives to level a village made of stone? A foolish lie. How could the old man not think in the moment how such a claim might play out?
Ben-Gurion summons him to his home in Sde Boker, for a visit in the desert. He invites the General into his simple quarters, where he sits on his single bed, monkish in the way of so many founders of nations. The prime minister wears an undershirt and short pants. He’s managed to cross his legs beneath him, a limber old Buddha.
Ben-Gurion says, “Tell me. Tell me what went on that night.”
The General says nothing. And the prime minister climbs off the bed and, slipping into his sandals, says, “Let’s walk.”
The General understands immediately. It is easier to discuss some things facing forward than when looking each other in the eye.