Raquela by Ruth Gruber

Author:Ruth Gruber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2010-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

FEBRUARY 4, 1948

Lili burst into the maternity hut.

“Raquela, a sailor handed me this newspaper. He said Captain Gee got it from someone who just flew in from Palestine and Captain Gee knew you’d want to see it.”

It was a single sheet of newsprint.

“What does it say?” Lili said, pressing Raquela. “Please read it to us.”

The nurses and refugee aides clustered around her. Raquela’s eyes swept the headline. She read it aloud, trying to control her mounting panic: “‘Palestine Post press and offices destroyed; bomb and fire gut three buildings.’”

She steadied herself and went on:

“Just before eleven P.M. on Sunday, February first, a British-army truck loaded with dynamite pulled up in front of the Palestine Post building. The driver, an Arab, disappeared. Minutes later his truck exploded. Buildings and homes for blocks around have been shattered; even cafés on Zion Square have been blown wide open. Hundreds have been wounded in the blast.’”

The date on the newspaper was February 2, 1948. In the middle of the night, on a private press—its own presses destroyed—the Post had printed the story of its own injuries.

Lili begged, “Go on, please—read us the whole paper, Raquela. Every word.”

Raquela was devouring the sheet. “I’ll read you column one. It’s written by an Englishman under the name of David Courtney.”

The aides and nurses moved close; the women in the beds raised themselves to listen better.

“‘The bomb in Hasolel Street for a moment closed the mouths of the messengers of the world, and shut off, as a telephone is shut off, the news from a score of capitals.’”

Raquela looked up at the women. “Those capitals he’s talking about,” she said, “they’re the capitals of all the Arab countries that surround us—Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq. Everybody who reads English in those countries reads the Palestine Post.

Then she continued: “‘It did but throw into still sharper relief, and sound with still farther-reaching voice, the truth of this land and the sureness of its triumph.’”

Slowly she reread the words in the silence of the hut: “‘…the truth of this land and the sureness of its triumph.’”

The words seared her.

Thoughts of the explosion made her frantic with fear. “What was happening in Jerusalem? Were Mama and Papa safe? Jacob and Yair, and their families? And Arik—was he safe on Mount Scopus?

She hoarded every piece of news, hungering for details. The radio was instant, swift. Letters and newspapers took weeks; they were more informative than the radio, yet more terrifying.

Papa had written soon after the November 29 vote on partition, telling her what the reaction was in Jerusalem. The joy and ecstasy had given way, almost overnight, to terror. The commercial center, a series of little shops and workrooms near the Jaffa Gate, had been blown up. Papa described how hundreds of Arabs had marched out of the Old City with guns and sticks and stones.

Raquela trembled, reading his letter. Was it an Arab replay? 1921. 1929. 1936. Now 1948. Memories of the little girl in the unfinished Yellin fortress-school made her hands sweat as she held the lined notepaper, reading how Papa had taken refuge in a hallway.

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