Come To The War Read Online Free Page B

his head towards the music in a manner which suggested that Yarom Nathan was drinking in the lighted room.
    'He goes out on his own,' I said. 'It is most original.' There was an aeroplane moping about in the night, high but insistent. The strings dropped quietly and the plane's engines were heavy. But then it went out over the dulled ocean and the sound whittled away.
    Tobin said: 'He was unhappy about many things when he wrote it, but they were usually less to worry about than he thought.'
    'We all do that,' I said.
    'Do you think we will be fighting soon?' he said anxiously turning from the sea.
    'So everybody tells me,' I answered cautiously. 'I am the one least likely to know. I am a stranger, remember.'
    He shook his head across the top of his glass as though testing the drink by smell. I thought again how his hair was odd and unfortunate.
    'A stranger maybe can see such things better than us,' he said. 'Sometimes it is better to look into an unfamiliar room from a window.'
    'Well I would say there will be no war,' I answered. I said it firmly, not because I believed it firmly but in some way to reassure him when he needed reassurance. 'Symbols and cymbals. Signs and noises.'
    He smiled gratefully. I did not know whether it was for the reassurance or the pun at first, but then he said: 'Very graceful. Symbols and cymbals.'
    I wanted to return to the room. But he touched then tugged my sleeve and said: 'Do you think America or England would come to help us?'
    I began to feel annoyed at his insistence. 'You won't need it,' I smiled firmly. 'There will be nothing. No trouble, no war. You see.'
    He shook his curious brush head. 'I cannot see how it can be avoided,' he said. He looked at me, tilting his chin. 'Everyone in the world thinks we are so brave,' he smiled. 'Israel will take on the earth! And then take the afternoon off! Ha, I wish it were so. Some are brave, my friend, and some are not. I am not. I fear it so much. I have sent my two sons to Rome. They went two weeks ago and I miss them. But I do not want them here. My wife, she will get out tomorrow. I would like to go too. The truth is I do not want to fight, to die, probably. Not for anything. Not even for Israel.'
    This time I made a determined turn into the room and the party again. 'Patriotism has become devalued,' I assured him. 'It is not what it was. With the Bomb and one thing and another we've given war a bad name.'
    We walked into the room. It was like entering a new layer of warmth. A tall, tanned woman in a long red dress leaned towards me and said, 'It was brilliant. So beautiful.' I would have liked to have stopped near her but Tobin was still worrying at my side.
    'Patriotism, you say, may be old-fashioned. But not for the Israelis, unfortunately,' he went on. 'To be a person of this country you must fight. It is part of being a citizen. And I don't like it.'
    I was introduced to a stony-looking archaeologist who took me to meet a seedy horticulturist who knew the woman in the red dress and introduced me to her. Her name was Selma Haydn. She was in her forties but good, taller than me, leisurely; a woman who was used to having time to care for herself, to dress herself with concern and finesse. Her tan was a sunbathing tan, gentle layers of it, not the harsh sun-brown of the outdoor working woman of Israel. She had careful make-up and veneered nails. Her fingers were slim and soft and she had a well-tended smile. This one had never worked on any kibbutz.
    'Our friend Tobin has been worrying you about the war,' she suggested at the outset. She had a firm English accent.
    'A trifle,' I agreed. 'But he is one of millions.'
    She was drinking a Martini. She sighed. 'The war, the war. Everyone talks about it as though it were an accomplished fact, as though it were all definite and done. By one side or the other. I find it very tiring.'
    'You're English,' I said. I grinned at her. 'Let me see - perhaps a girl ambulance driver in the war. Singing while the