Chapter 24 The Passage of Time #5
Back in 1971, Esther had voiced solidarity with Jimmy’s Swedish and French publishers.
They, like her, were left-wing, nonobservant Jews.
That summer, there was rioting in Jerusalem because the Egged bus service was operating on a Saturday.
“The ultra-religious are protesting Sabbath desecration,” Esther wrote to Honor.
There were more than two hundred Orthodox demonstrators, led by a rabbi.
The police used water cannons to disperse the religious zealots.
Esther loved the water cannons. Even in the early 1970s, those two European Jews who published Jimmy said the prospect of a more religious society in Israel was on the horizon, the right wing on the rise.
They were worried about it—as was Esther, Jimmy could only guess.
Later on, when his Swedish and French publishers talked about taking him to Jerusalem, Jimmy thought of Annelies more than he thought of Esther.
Why wouldn’t he? When he’d been back in Vienna on the translation trip, Jimmy had gone to the Schwindgasse, but—like Little Mirror—Frau Holzinger’s family was gone.
Jimmy could only imagine that Fr?ulein Eissler might have adopted Siegfried, as Irmgard had hoped.
Why wouldn’t Jimmy imagine that Annelies could have taken Siegfried to Israel to save him?
And hadn’t Irmgard been right about the passage of time?
It really is a telescope that sees into the future.
Vienna Winslow was growing up. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
In the summer of 1978, Vienna was thirteen.
The Winslow sisters were saying it was time for Vienna to think about a bra.
Jimmy wanted nothing to do with his daughter’s bras.
Vienna had her own ideas. “I can get better bras in Amsterdam than in Pennacook, Dad,” she whispered to her father.
When it came to bras, even Jimmy knew that Mieke and Jolanda wore more up-to-date bras than the Winslow sisters did.
Esther was already writing Honor Winslow about the first settlement established by HaMa’arakh (“The Alignment” in Hebrew)—an Israeli alliance of social democratic parties—when James Winslow was still a student looking after a two-year-old.
The settlement was the reincarnation of Kfar Etzion—not that Jimmy knew, or would remember.
He was busy with fatherhood and writing.
In the decade between 1967 and 1977—when, according to Esther, “the right wing took over”—almost thirty settlements were established.
They were located where there was a sparse population of Palestinians, “not justifiable for security reasons,” Esther wrote—in her opinion, “a huge mistake.” She said the settlements were “against international law”—citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, concerning the protection of “Civilian Persons in Time of War.” Esther wrote that she had “a sometime boyfriend who was a peace activist”—he refused to go into the army.
The Winslow sisters were buzzing about Esther as an uncharacteristic and unlikely peace activist.
In the 1977 elections, Herut—now as a part of the Likud, the right wing Esther had in mind—reached power.
Menachem Begin became Israel’s prime minister.
According to Esther, the Begin government started to establish settlements close to the Palestinian population.
She said the settlements hindered a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Jimmy wasn’t paying attention to what was happening in Israel.
In the fall of 1979, Vienna Winslow was almost the age Esther had been when she came from St. Cloud’s.
Vienna was a first-year student at the academy; her fancy bras, from Amsterdam, were the envy of the other girls.
Pennacook Academy had become a coeducational school in 1973.
The academy faculty knew that Vienna was the great-granddaughter of The Dickens Man—the daughter of the novel’s author, and a better student than her father.
In the fall of 1980, when she was fifteen and a half, Vienna started learning to drive—at first with her father, then with one of her aunts.
She was also enrolled in a driver education program.
Vienna would take her driving test the summer of 1981, when she was sixteen—a tall, pretty girl (taller than her author father).
Prompted by his European Jewish publishers.
Jimmy would go to Israel in April 1981, at the invitation of what was then called the Jerusalem International Book Fair.
Matthias and Gabrielle had longstanding ties to Israel and knew Jerusalem well.
They’d invited Jimmy to stay with them at the American Colony Hotel.
They told him that international journalists and diplomats, as well as U.N. officers, liked staying there.
Jimmy hoped he would see Esther in Jerusalem.
In writing to Esther, Honor had given her all the details of Jimmy’s itinerary.
But Esther, as always, was elusive and vague.
She didn’t commit herself to seeing Jimmy.
“At her age, Jimmy—she’ll be seventy-six when you’re there—Esther has most likely retired,” his mom told him.
“Retired from what? It’s as unclear as always!” Faith said first.
“Once upon a time, Esther must have worked for the Mossad,” Hope reminded Jimmy, who often looked like he’d forgotten everything.
“Moreover, Jimmy, Esther must have had a high rank in the IDF—before she went to work for the Mossad,” Prudence told him.
What Esther said on the phone to Honor Winslow, who’d asked her what she was doing, was that she no longer did anything. “I’m just advising, or occasionally information-gathering,” was the vague way Esther put it.
There was something the Winslow sisters weren’t telling him, Jimmy was thinking.
“Has Esther stopped sending photos of herself, or have you stopped showing me her pictures?” he asked his mom.
He knew how those sisters waited for one of them to go first. Faith was the one who told him there’d been no photos of Esther since she lost her arm.
Hope said Jimmy should know about the arm before he saw Esther in Jerusalem—provided Esther chose to see him.
Prudence chided Honor for not telling Jimmy about Esther’s missing arm. It had happened three years ago.
“You’re the doctor, Prudence—you know more about missing arms than I do. You tell Jimmy how Esther lost her entire arm!” Honor cried.
“There were no medical or surgical details,” Prudence told Jimmy.
“There were no details of any kind, Jimmy,” his mother told him.
Faith had answered the phone when the young IDF soldier called, a boy who asked for Honor. “This is about Esther—she’s going to be all right,” the soldier said. Faith told Honor there was a soldier on the phone.
“Something’s happened to Esther?” Hope asked Faith, who said the soldier sounded too young to be shaving; he wouldn’t tell Honor his name.
“No sensitive information, no unnecessary details,” the young soldier said.
He kept repeating that Esther was going to be all right.
This call came after the coastal road massacre in 1978.
Palestinian militants had crossed into Israel from Lebanon and hijacked a bus on the Coastal Highway near Tel Aviv, killing thirty-eight Israeli civilians, a third of them children.
(The bus had exploded, bursting into flames.) The PLO claimed responsibility for the attack, which had been planned by Fatah.
The purpose for the attack was to disrupt Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations.
Three days later, Israel invaded southern Lebanon, attacking PLO bases nearest the border.
“When our command car came under heavy fire and Esther was wounded, we were not on a military mission—we were only information-gathering,” the young soldier told Honor, who’d seen pictures Esther sent of the M325—a light truck, fitted with machine guns, a patrol vehicle and weapons carrier.
“What kind of heavy fire—machine guns, grenades?” Honor had asked.
“Submachine guns, definitely—maybe two grenades,” the soldier said.
Esther had not been so badly wounded that she couldn’t give orders. Her commands to the soldiers escorting her in the M325 were crystal clear.
“Leave me, or leave my arm,” Esther commanded them. The young soldier told Honor that this had become a mantra among IDF recruits. The story of how Esther lost her arm in Lebanon got around.
“But how did she lose her arm in Lebanon?” Honor Winslow asked.
“No sensitive information, no unnecessary details,” the soldier said.
Esther had earlier expressed her leftist allegiance to Israeli prime ministers of the Labor Party, opposing Menachem Begin, and she was dismayed when he was made leader of the Likud coalition in 1973.
The Winslow sisters remembered how angry Esther was when Menachem Begin became prime minister of Israel in 1977, ending years of left-wing leadership.
Esther had criticized Begin’s uncompromising position on Israel’s retaining the West Bank and the Gaza Strip—which were occupied by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Esther had even complained how Begin dressed.
(He’d been a soldier, but he wore formal-looking suits and ties.)
Yet when Honor called Esther to tell her Jimmy knew about the arm, the Winslow sisters were surprised by the photo Esther sent of herself—a news photograph, torn from an Israeli newspaper.
The one-armed Esther was saying something to Begin and the prime minister was listening.
In contrast to how formally Begin was dressed, Esther wore dark slacks, like men’s trousers, and ankle-high boots—no laces.
Her white polo shirt was untucked and unbuttoned.
The stump of her right arm protruded only an inch or two below the short-sleeved cuff of her shirt.
When Vienna Winslow, Jimmy’s sixteen-year-old, saw this photo, Vienna sounded more like Jolanda than Mieke. “Maybe Esther is saying, ‘Leave me, or leave my arm,’ to Prime Minister Begin,” Vienna said.