MICHAL GOVRIN
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martyrdom on all testimony. In this context, it is hard to describe the
day-to-day struggle to survive.
.
How
CAN YOU TALK
about two years of incessant fear? About the constant
calculations? When is it least dangerous to go to the supermarket, that is,
when doesn't it "pay" to send a suicide bomber? Whether to go to the cafe
where an armed guard sits at the door or to be afraid of a terrorist who'll
shoot from outside? Whether to go downtown, despite yesterday's and
last week's attacks? Or whether the Arab approaching the bus in a puffed–
up jacket is a suicide bomber? How did I start to suspect the innocent?
And when I can't bear it anymore and need some relief, do I dare go see
the splendid blossoming in the valley, or will a terrorist lurk there as well?
How can I tell about the fear when ambulance sirens split the street?
One, two. On the third one, my hand reaches for the radio to hear the
breaking news. Six, seven, ten killed. Then the nervous wait for their
names. Maybe one of them is a relative, or a friend, or the friend of a
friend-a plausible reality in such a small state. Reading the stories of
the lives cut off. And already another "attack." And then a quiet week.
The fear recedes under a routine that immediately grips us. Sitting in the
evening around the kitchen table, we enjoy just eating together. As in the
cartoon of the babysitter wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest who
joyously tells the children wearing the same protective garments: "Chil–
dren, today we're going out!" "Great. Where to?" "To the balcony!"
And then, after a day or two, more scenes of horror. Talking with
Aharon Appelfeld after one of the attacks, he remarks: "It's like the
ghetto, every day more people are killed."
Constant fear. For yourself, and even more for your children. Ever
since the outbreak of the war, our two daughters have traveled only by
taxi, since busses, the popular means of transportation, have turned into
the preferred'targets of mass murder. There's a cartoon that shows pas–
sengers getting out of a bus and falling on their faces to kiss the ground
of the station, grateful they were saved. Our unlimited budget for taxis
was an attempt to ward off this dread during the girls' wait at the bus
stop after school with a group of children-as an exposed target of ter–
ror-and to save the time of traveling in what can become an infernal
machine. And the dread as soon as they're late. It happened this sum–
mer. My older daughter was at the Hebrew University library when a
bomb blew up in the cafeteria. Her phone call-"Mother, I'm fine."–
reached my cell phone before the radio in the taxi blasted the news
about the many killed. Nevertheless, at home, after she phoned again, I
collapsed. The next day, when she learned that two of her acquain-
