Not All Stories Are True
Author Stephen Schecter Brings Current Israel Home to Us in His New Novel
Chapter 3
The diameter of a bomb, Yehuda Amichai once wrote, is much larger than the bomb itself. It extends all the way to the cemetery in a far-off country where a woman killed by the bomb is eventually buried. But for us, thought Assaf, for Martin and me, the diameter of the bomb reached all the way to my bed, and instead of producing death, gave birth to a miraculous love. Which makes me in some twisted way indebted to a terrorist. This is what happens to you after thirty-nine days of guard duty at a West Bank crossroads. Your mind turns everything over on its side. How does it look from there? And from there? And maybe even from there? Even the stupid name West Bank carries with it a way of looking at things, implies that somehow it belongs by right to Jordan whose west bank it is. So why don’t the Palestinians attack the East Bank? Why don’t they denounce the Jordanian entity and reclaim the land that was once theirs, even if everyone knows it was no more theirs than ours? Everything’s only a story, is it not? A rose by any other name is not a rose, Martin was fond of telling him. Most Israelis call the West Bank the Territories. Some prefer Judea and Samaria. If we all thought of it as Judea and Samaria, they said, we would not need checkpoints. They were right, Assaf had come to believe. Martin had long ago thought so, long before the day they met.
It was a day like any other in Israel and in Jerusalem, its eternal, undivided and unrecognized capital. The sun rose early. Assaf too rose early. There was a problem on one of his construction sites that needed to be seen to before the crew set to work. At the other end of the city Martin also rose early. He wanted to work on his latest article, The Problem of Perspective in the Hebrew Bible, before he had to set off for class. By eleven o’clock they both had done a good day’s work. The labor dispute had been settled, the cement trucks had been allowed in, the missing permit had somehow miraculously appeared, and Assaf was ready for a double coffee at his favorite downtown hangout. For Martin things went more slowly. There was more than one construction problem in the first section of the Book of Genesis. Why, for example, were there two Creation stories, one right after the other? What did Cain say to Abel, and Abel to Cain, that led the one to smash the other’s skull in? Why did God ask Adam where he was and Cain where Abel his brother was? Why? Why? Why? Reading the Hebrew Bible turned Martin into a three-year-old, a transformation he did not regret, nor did his students. He loved the words, loved the stories they told, wondered for hours at their beauty and mystery in which he literally lost himself. But Martin was not a three-year-old. He was a university lecturer and had to shower before taking the bus up to the Mt. Scopus campus. So shower he did, and just as Assaf was about to walk into his coffee bar, Martin, properly dressed and briefcase in hand, was strolling toward the number 4 bus stop.
It was then that it happened. The bus that was standing like some friend out of a children’s storybook suddenly exploded. An elderly woman who had just climbed on did not stand a chance. Neither did the bus driver, nor the young people waiting in line for the trip to their classrooms. Bodies burst apart and the blast from the bomb hurled people like Martin and Assaf, who were lucky enough to be counted as mere passersby, to the ground. The damage diameter of the bomb was large because the bomb of choice which Palestinian terrorists favored was packed with nails. This ensured that when the bomber detonated him or herself the victims were multiplied. The immediate blast killed those nearest, severed the limbs of those in the outer perimeter, while the nails flung far and wide dug themselves at random into the unlucky ones. People lost legs, arms, eyes. Many were maimed for life. Souls were scarred forever. Suicide bombing, it was called, the desperate lashing out of the disappointed. Israelis knew it for what it was: homicide pure and simple, willful and fanatic.
The screaming could be heard at once. Smoke from the charred bus filled the air. Within minutes the fire and medical people were on the scene. So were Zaka, the volunteers who came to assist in the collection of body parts, a mobile chevra kadisha for the age of terrorism. They picked up fingers, legs, genitals, any bit of skin and organ that would not only help identify the victims but allow for a proper burial. Martin and Assaf were part of the pandemonium, entangled in each other’s arms and legs a hundred meters from the bus stop. They were both dazed. Assaf felt his chest was sticky. The hand he moved to touch it came away blood red. God have mercy, he thought, I have a hole in my chest. But his breathing was regular. His brain thought as it usually thought. His eyes looked out on the aftermath of a bomb. Everything was normal. Then he noticed the man lying on top of him and the blood that trickled from his forehead. The man’s hand was fingering his brow and the man’s face was looking at the bloody fingers that came away from it. Then he saw Assaf beneath him. He wanted to say sorry, but he was too amazed to say anything except hello. Assaf touched his forehead and smiled. “Hello,” he said. “Very pleased to meet you.”
It took them a while to get disentangled. The medics came over and bandaged Martin’s wound that turned out to be miraculously light. They checked the two men over but found nothing wrong. Still, they said, you might want to go to the hospital. Just to be sure. Neither of them did. They were still young, still invincible, would still serve in the army.
“Assaf.”
“Martin.”
“One minute please. I have to phone my wife.” His cell phone still worked. “Nurit. I’m okay. Yes, I was near the blast. Very near. A man fell on top of me and took whatever beating I was going to take. No, nothing serious. I’m going to find my car. I was going for coffee. Now I’ll have to go elsewhere. It’s a mess. A lot of dead, I think. Probably a lot of wounded too. You’ll know more by watching the tv. The kids were in school, right? Good. Yes, yes, don’t worry. I’ll see you tonight. Bye.” Then to Martin: “You don’t have to phone anybody?”
“No.”
“Come with me, then.”
“I’m supposed to be at the university.”
“I doubt if they will have classes. But I can take you there. There certainly won’t be bus service for a while.”
“Thanks.”
The bomb scene forced them to take a detour down Yafo and up to the Russian Compound, right past police headquarters. The crush of traffic in and out made navigating the streets difficult. Roadblocks were everywhere. They finally reached Assaf’s car. Martin leaned against the side. “Do you think we’ll get out?” he asked.
Assaf shrugged.
“Maybe we should wait for the neighborhood to clear.”
“That will take hours. I hate waiting. Besides, we’re going away from the scene, not towards it. Didn’t you want to go to the university?”
“I did. I did.”
“So let’s go.”
Assaf opened the car. Martin got in slowly. His six-foot frame seemed to unbend and almost collapse as he fit himself into the Fiat. “Are you okay?” Assaf asked, turning to face his passenger.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. These attacks always get to me. It’s like coming face to face with evil, pure and undiluted. Nothing excuses it. Nothing explains it. It’s exactly what God saw by the end of the first section of Genesis. Because of it He sent the flood. What do we send? Tax revenues.”
Assaf simply stared. Is this how professors talk? Maybe he isn’t even a professor. “Are you sure you want to go to the university?”
“Where else will I go? What about my students? They will be waiting. Some may be among the dead. Who shall console them? This is no time to cut classes.”
Assaf thought the university may well have shut down by now, but he kept the thought to himself. “Let’s see,” he said, and started up the car.
“Let’s see what?”
“Let’s see if we can get to the university.”
By the time they got there the news had already spread throughout the campus. No one seemed to be in class. Groups of students milled about talking on cell phones. Everyone was checking up on everyone. Who lived? Who died? It was Yom Kippur seven months early. Martin showed him where he wanted to go. Assaf asked him if he wanted him to wait. If classes were cancelled, maybe Martin wanted to go back to town.
“You said you didn’t like to wait. I think I should stay here. But thanks. Maybe some other time.” Martin opened the door.
“Wait,” said Assaf, and took out his wallet. “Here is my card. That way there can be some other time.”
“Okay,” said Martin. “See you then.” He watched Assaf drive off. Some students he knew quickly approached him. He turned his attention to them. Assaf watched in his mirror for as long as he could.
- This is a taste of our guest, Stephen Schecter’s newest novel, Not All Stories are True. I offer this to my subscribers because I find the author writes lovely prose, and because it brings current Israel to life vividly. If this piece interests you, you may read the serialized book, for free, chapter by chapter at Stephen’s Substack Schecter.substack.com
Carl I think you have an incorrect email for Stephen (my partner). It should be Schecter.substack.com