The Clay Urn Read online

  “Hey, little kittie. Where y’been?”

  The cat jumped onto Ilana’s cot and stepped slowly across her sketchbook. She meowed, sank on all fours in the middle of the paper, and closed her eyes.

  “You’ve been up to no good.”

  Ilana slid the sketchbook from under the cat’s resting body, turned the pages back to her last drawing of Boaz and wrote down a free flow of words in the void around his face. 5:45am prepare coffee, ready at 6:00, gather mail, breakfast, shower, exit tent, talk to soldiers, distribute mail, prepare more coffee, check supply list, arrange meetings, unfold maps, count night goggles, restock medical kits, order snacks, mail letters, count soldiers, wish ‘em luck, wait for their return, count soldiers, listen to stories, make announcements, sleep, dream, shower, wash hair, dry hair, look in mirror, deconstruct machine gun, clean barrel, reassemble, look in mirror, tuck in shirt, twist hair, look in mirror, adjust machine gun strap so it’s low on the hip and looks right, look in mirror, turn, prepare coffee, look in mirror, apply lip cream, exit tent, meet with Boaz, touch his hand, dress wound.

  She exhaled and turned the pad towards the cat.

  “What do you think, kitty?”

  She adjusted her gun strap, stepped outside and walked along the path to the makeshift front gate. The setting sun ignited the rocky land below in orange and gold. Swirling gusts of wind pushed through endless olive groves, shaking the small, silvery leaves. A loudspeaker attached to the side of a mosque blurted out a man’s voice and called the faithful to prayer. She passed Eyal who was on guard duty.

  “I thought about our conversation,” he said. “I’m glad,” Ilana said.

  His eyes studied the top button of her shirt. “Can we talk?”

  “Not now.”

  “Ok, maybe later? By the way, did you tell the captain about what happened?”

  Ilana inhaled. “He already knew.”

  At the bottom of the hill a single file line of nine jeeps filled with reservists pulled up at the gate.

  “Hey! Stop talking you two and open the gate,” a reservist shouted at Eyal. “Can’t you see we’re hungry?”

  The commander of the reserve reconnaissance company jumped out of the lead jeep and introduced himself to Ilana as Udi.

  “You can park the jeeps over there and follow me to the dining room,” she said.

  Ilana spread out a plastic covered topographic map across one of the tables in the dining room.

  “This is the village giving us trouble. Last week they threw two molotov cocktails at our patrols. This morning, we found three collaborators hung in the village square.”

  The reservists were part of a recon unit attached to Central Command. Once a month for the past ten years they left their civilian lives and trained inside this area. They were brought in to work with the company and assist them in information gathering.

  “What does intelligence say?” Udi said.

  “A local cell is planning an attack on civilian targets inside Israel.”

  Suddenly, the black and white cat jumped on the table, walked across the map and sank into Ilana’s lap.

  “This is our mascot,” Ilana said. “She got a name?”

  “Not yet, but we’re open to suggestions.”

  Udi spooned out a piece of chicken from his soup and handed it to the cat. She balanced on Ilana’s thigh and nipped at the scraps.

  “It’s a nice cat,” he said.

  Boaz entered the tent and introduced himself to Udi. “Did Ilana give you the details of the mission?” Boaz said. “She did and was very thorough.”

  Ilana grinned at Udi.

  “You have any questions?”

  “I think we’re clear.”

  “You want to go over it just in case.”

  Ilana felt she was being tested.

  “Sure, Captain. We’ll confiscate a car with West Bank license plates so it’ll be easier for your soldiers to drive through the Palestinian villages undetected. It sounds fairly routine.”

  The reservists looked down at their food and laughed.

  Udi’s eyes were large and round. He had a kind manner and a clear voice that made Ilana comfortable. She thought of her father’s friends that came to the house to take him out for weekends away. Smelling of stale cigarettes and after shave they lifted her and hugged her. She loved to see her father happy and acting simple and child-like with his buddies.

  “Ok, I’ll see you at twenty-one hundred hours.”

  “How you making out with all this?” Udi said to Ilana.

  “I understand our security issues. I’m not naive. But when I see these kids on patrol going inside their markets and talking shit to the shop owners, I can only assume it’s going to end badly. What do we expect from them? They’re still kids and way out of their league. I think Central Command’s new direction will foster terrible mistrust and make matters worse. How about you?”

  “I’m thirty-eight years old and doing this too long. I’ve been in three wars in twenty years. Too many buddies killed or injured. A week ago, I was at home with my wife, playing with my three kids and our newborn. Now I’m here trying to figure out the landscape with my company. Except for a few of us, we don’t understand the logic of going inside villages. If there’s positive intelligence, we go and get them. But putting these young kids at checkpoints and inside villages every day is not good. Look, my nephew who lives in London is your age. Right now, he’s figuring out why his soccer team didn’t beat Manchester United. That’s what I want my kids to be concerned with. My guys don’t really get this thing of being inside villages and showing presence. We’re fighters, not policemen.”

  “My dad turned down a position at a university in the United States because he didn’t want me to be away at the time of my draft,” Ilana said. “It was important to my parents that I serve. I wanted to go live in New York, maybe for the same reasons that your nephew can be obsessed with his team. But I’m glad we didn’t go. This is important to me.”

  “Your company is lucky. I hope they appreciate you,” Udi said.

  “I’m glad that you’ll be out there tonight with our boys,” Ilana said. “I’ll tell the cooks to prepare hot chocolate. It’ll be on the stove when you get back.”

  “My men love hot chocolate after an evening out on the town.”

  Ilana smiled.

  The reservists gassed up their jeeps and met Boaz and Ilana by the gate at 21:00 hours. She introduced Udi to the platoon commanders and laid out the map over the hood of the jeep. Boaz went over alternative plans in case something happened. He spoke slowly and emphasized every syllable.

  “Any questions?”

  “You’ve been inside this area before?” Udi said.

  “No, but I’m not worried. These locals are not Hezbollah, and this isn’t Lebanon.”

  “Right.”

  “Any other questions?”

  “Nope. Just wanna be sure you did your homework. I’m responsible for my men. I promised their wives to get them back in one piece.”

  Udi turned to Ilana and grinned.

  “Anything else?” Boaz said.

  “How ‘bout Ilana comes with us tonight.”

  Boaz folded the map, adjusted his night vision goggles and pointed north. “Let’s go.”

  “You didn’t answer me, Captain. She speaks better Arabic than most of us and can ride with me.”

  “Ok.”

  The drivers turned off the jeep headlights and shifted into low gear. The last ray of sun pulled back from the ancient, rocky terrain exposing a thin crescent moon that floated high in the darkening sky. The wide tires of the nine jeeps bore down on the dirt path, crawled over rocks and grinded through ditches. They crossed a dry brook and the land flattened. Boaz pointed to a secondary road with trees and bushes on both sides.

  “You okay, Ilana?” Udi said.

  “I’m good. Thanks for advocating for me. This is really important to me.”


  Udi tapped her on her helmet. Ilana smiled and looked through the night vision goggles.

  “Let’s park here,” Boaz said to Udi.

  They backed their jeeps into a thicket of bushes and turned off their engine. Boaz handed his map to the driver.

  “Come with me,” he said to Udi.

  They lay down obstacles over the dirt road and signaled for the soldiers to get into an ambush formation alongside the road. Ilana manned the radio and donned night vision goggles and watched from the jeep deep inside the bushes. The soldiers lay on their stomachs’ alongside the road. After an hour, an old Mercedes slowed down as it bounced over the debris. The interior of the car was bedecked in typical local flair and West Bank license plates. Boaz whispered to Udi to grab a flashlight and follow him. He jumped in front of the slow-moving vehicle and shouted at him to stop. Udi shined the flashlight on the driver’s face. Boaz pointed his machine gun at the driver.

  “Get out of the car.”

  The driver slowly exited the car. He looked dazed and scared.

  “Give me your license. We’re confiscating your car.”

  “By whose authority?” the man asked in broken Hebrew.

  “Fuck you—that’s whose authority,” Boaz said.

  The man slowly got out of his car. Boaz signaled for Ilana. The other soldiers pushed up onto one knee and remained in position. The driver looked into Boaz’s eyes. “If I give you my car, I can’t get to work. If I can’t get to work, I lose my job. If I lose my job, I can’t feed my family. No, I can’t give you my car.”

  Boaz waited for him to finish, cocked his gun and pointed it at the ground.

  “Tell him that if he doesn’t give us his car, he’ll lose his foot,” he said to Ilana.

  Ilana inhaled and froze. The driver looked at the ground where the rifle was pointed.

  “I can’t give you my car,” he replied in Hebrew.

  Suddenly, there was a rustle in the bushes. The soldiers turned, jerked their guns into firing position, took aim and exhaled. Udi quickly donned his night vision goggles.

  “Hold your fire. It’s the freakin’ cat.”

  The little mascot scampered over to Ilana, looking for handouts and scraps of food. For a moment his meow broke the tension. Everyone giggled nervously—except the driver of the car and Boaz.

  “Give him back his license,” Udi said. “There’ll be others.”

  “What’d you say?”

  “Let’s move on.”

  Boaz inhaled. “Consider yourself lucky tonight,” he said to the driver in Arabic.

  Boaz handed him his license and slammed the butt of his rifle into his stomach. The driver doubled over and fell to both knees.

  They returned to base before dawn. After unloading the jeeps, the reservists and soldiers smoked and laughed about the evening’s escapades.

  “There’s hot chocolate on the stove if anyone wants it,” Ilana said.

  Boaz was busy folding his map and writing notes. “Can I get you a cup of hot chocolate, Captain?” Boaz didn’t acknowledge her.

  “Everything okay?”

  Boaz leaned his elbow on the hood of the jeep. Ilana tried not to stare at his wound. “This place is fucked.”

  Ilana had hoped for a better response, but she knew this place wasn’t suited for people like Boaz. Some were thinkers and planners and worked well with gray area. Others, like Boaz, relied on their basic instinct.

  “Did you hear that sound by the gate?” Udi said.

  The soldiers grabbed their guns and opened their stocks. They quickly laid out flat on their stomachs and looked through their machine gun sights.

  “Everyone stay in place.” Boaz whispered.

  He slowly raised his machine gun, pressed it tightly to his cheek, inhaled and held his breath.

  “It’s near the jeep,” Udi whispered.

  Boaz curled his index finger around the metal trigger, aimed his sight and watched for movement. Suddenly, the little mascot appeared from under the jeep’s wheel and pranced into the middle of the crowd. He rubbed his body and tail against Boaz’s leg and meowed. Ilana broke out in hysterical laughter. Udi and the others joined in. With his machine gun still resting on his cheek, Boaz looked at Udi, and with a forced smile, flipped the fire selector to semi-automatic and silenced the mascot forever.

  Chapter 3

  Ari stood motionless as the cool winter rain drenched his cap, given to him by his mother on his eighth birthday. He exhaled, leaned forward and watched the water drain from the hat’s brim onto the wet earth. His father Benny, defiant and erect, focused his sight on a narrow path leading to the top of a looming mound. He removed a pair of binoculars from his pouch, pushed the lens against his eye sockets and inhaled.

  “See the crumbling wall on top of the Tel? I think it’s from the Israelite period. We’ll head up and have a closer look.”

  “You think there’s coins up there?” Ari asked. “Maybe.”

  “It’s really raining hard now.”

  “That’s good,” his father said. It washes away topsoil, making it easier to find objects. Keep your eyes glued to the path. We might get lucky.”

  The week before, a boy in Ari’s first grade class brought in a Roman coin. He told his classmates it was a rare find, possibly worth millions of American dollars.

  “My father wants to sell the coin to an international museum and buy a big house near the sea.”

  Ari didn’t care much for him and didn’t believe it was worth millions. He wanted to find an older coin that unveiled historical clues and hold it up in front of the class and tell the story of how he and his father had gone out searching together.

  “Do you have more coins like this?” the girl seated in the front row with long braids and thick eyeglasses would ask Ari.

  “Yes, a whole collection at home. Me and my dad are a good team. We know exactly what to look for,” Ari would tell her.

  “Can I walk home with you after school?” she would say.

  The rain came down steadily. Ari looked up at his father and watched him wipe away the water that collected on his cheeks.

  “Where’s the wall? I can’t see it.”

  “Look up at the top of the mound. You see a pile of cut stones? They’re a few that are still in place and others that look like they’ve been pushed down.”

  Ari looked up and squinted.

  “Why would they push them down?”

  “It was part of a wall that encircled the ancient village. Originally it was probably Cannannite. Then the stones were used again to reinforce the new wall when the Israelites took it over and refortified.”

  “They don’t look like anyone cut them.”

  Ari only saw rocks without any shape piled one on top of the other.

  “They are quarried from limestone, then chiseled into squares. That way they are even and can be placed one on top of the other. That’s how they did it.”

  “They still do it like that?”

  “Yep. Some things haven’t changed.”

  Benny’s speech was calm and assuring. Ari watched his lips brush across his teeth with each syllable. He had a small scar caused by shrapnel from an Egyptian tank that ran under his right eye and ended at his cheekbone. Ari looked at it often and created stories in his mind about what happened. He hung on his father’s every word and felt secure within his presence. Any problems he couldn’t grasp, his father would make sense of them and put them into perspective. After a school was attacked by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the north of the country and children were killed, Ari insisted he’d never go back to school. He declared it too dangerous, climbed into his parents’ bed, covered his head with the sheets and didn’t leave for days.

  “Come to the kitchen,” his father had yelled. “Your mother made macaroni and cheese.”

  “No. I’m not coming.”

  After dinner Benny moved his nightstand to the center of the room and spread
a white tablecloth over it and placed ice cream, chocolate sauce, two bowls and spoons in the center. His father made enough noise to get his attention, and Ari peeked his head out from under the sheets.

  “What’s that?”

  “Vanilla.”

  “I mean, what are you doing?”

  “I want to invite you to have ice cream with me.”

  “I’m never going to school,” Ari said with conviction.

  “I understand. You have the right to make your own decisions. But what about the ice cream.”

  Ari slipped through the sheets and slid down the side of the bed landing feet first and joined his father. “It’s good. Where’d you get it?”

  “At the new store at the entrance to the Moshav. The woman that works there told me it’s homemade. It’s a nice place. She said she put all her money into it because she feels the neighborhood needs a store like hers. She asked me to relay the message to you that if you like the ice cream you should come to the store and tell her. I told her you weren’t feeling well at the moment and needed a boost.”

  Benny tapped on the side of the container and watched Ari lick the spoon.

  “She recommended this flavor. She said it’s the best she has.”

  “You want another scoop?”

  “Yep.”

  “You know not everything is going to be sweet all the time. Now it’s special ‘cause we’re eating ice cream together. I went through all this effort so we can share some time and talk. Me and you, and the ice cream, will help us get through the tough times. But you can’t eat ice cream all the time.”