Shabbat has ended and with it a good day’s socializing. Our lives have become schizophrenic. Our faces are masked by day and by night. In daylight we visit one another. We laugh a lot and tell weak jokes. On every show on Israel television, someone is doing a take off of the war. They call Nachman Shai, spokesman for the army, the nation’s Valium. Nervous? Take two Nachman Shai’s and go to bed. Do you know what Tel Aviv has been renamed? Mamat Aviv or Tel Aviv. Do you know why you don’t see a lot of Shamir on TV these days? Because they can’t get him out of the Mamat. (‘Mamat’: infant protection cradle. ‘Til:’ scud.)
Yesterday I bussed to Tel Aviv and took my daughter out to lunch. We went to the Dizengoff Center. It was bustling and bubbling. The shops were full and noisy; the eateries packed. People were talking their heads off. “Nu, how’re you coping with the situation?”
Everyone’s coping just fine. This one doesn’t even carry her gas mask. “I don’t believe in them,” she says, cocky with bravado. The rest of us carryout survival equipment everywhere. Surreptitiously, in designer-made carriers in exotic colors and textures. Blue to match your blue eyes; polka dot red to match your sweater. You can buy a soft, weatherproof, zippered carrier or you can buy a hard boxed vanity case. One simply must have something to hold the gas mask, atropine injector, fuller’s earth dusting powder, plastic raincoat, a set of radio earphones and a torch.
After four weeks without ventilation our sealed room has begun to stink. The chlorinated cloth has begun to rot. The weather is getting warmer and drier and the room is becoming oppressive. Yesterday was one of those soft blue and orange days with the gentlest of breezes. I tore open the plastic window seal and cautiously let in a guest of cool air. I switched on a fan in the room and imagined the air swirling around. I stuck my head out of the window and thought “Fuck you, Saddam Hussein,” as I held tightly to my roll of masking tape and scissors having pre-planned what I must do if the siren began its spine-curdling wail. I stood at the window and felt free. Than from below me I heard a neighbor shout to her husband: “Hey Cecil, I simply had to open the window and let in some air.” There’s no sealing up the human spirit.
Dusk fails and our hearts beat a little feaster. Five o’clock in the afternoon after visiting friends the highway is bumper to bumper with people in cars trying to make it home before night falls. Our faces are tense as the traffic lurches. We honk the hooter at the slightest provocation. At home our daughter has a friend and boyfriend visiting. I’m friendly but all the while I’m considering the possibility of an alert sounding while her friends are at the house. Will we all sit together in the sealed room? Do I really want to share the intimacy of my most anxious moments with a stranger? What if I start to hyperventilate? What if I tremble? Do I really want these people to see my fear?
I prepare my evening toilet: lay out pajamas within easy reach of the bath. Calculate the risk of washing my hair. How long will it take me to dry and dress?
I place the family’s gas masks on the dressing table so that they will be ready and available. I check the seal on all the windows. Close the doors of room we will not need. Replace the chlorinated cloth in its bucket. Place cushions and a duvet on the floor in the passage next to the inner wall where it is said we’ll have the greatest chance of being safe. Every movement has been pre-planned to ensure the greatest efficiency against the dreaded moment when it comes.
Then I sit with my family and we watch CNN television and wait. Our movements are small and constricted. We know that somewhere in the dark, somebody is plotting to kill us. As night deepens our faces become etched with fear. We wear our masks of war.
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