Love at the Edge: Based on True Accounts from the Conflict in the Middle East

By Joan Katen

Two university students, David and Yasmeen, are transported from their reality which is life amidst the insecurities and violence of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict to what is tantamount to a fantasy world in France. Yasmeen, an intelligent, shy, beautiful, Palestinian woman and David, a bright, passionate, Israeli man with a quick sense of humor and an easygoing manner find themselves far from home adjusting slowly to their new surroundings. Each is endeavoring to overcome personal sadness caused directly by the violence in the Middle East.

They meet and are immediately attracted to one another, but their different backgrounds and prejudices keep them apart. That is until fate takes a hand in their futures. Finding themselves in grave danger, they must learn to trust each other, cooperate, and let go of the stereotypes they have been taught to believe if they are going to survive. Can their relationship, which develops so far from home and under such dire circumstances, stand the test of time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462064649

Joan Katen

JOAN KATEN is a leading expert on Middle Eastern Politics and a distinguished Adjunct Professor at Pace University. Ms. Katen was graduated Magna Cum Laude from Hunter College in New York City where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her master’s degree and completed her Ph.D. course work in political science at Columbia University.

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Part I

His Story: Tel Aviv, Israel

Chapter One

The phone startled me. After only a moment’s hesitation, I shoved my anatomy book up onto the desk and wove my way across the cluttered floor of my room to the night table. Narrowly grazing a pile of CDs on my way, I stopped briefly to watch them teeter and then regain their composure.

Hello, I said distractedly, not yet back from enzymes in the digestive tract.

Hello David, you good-for-nothing bum, said a voice. Is there any reason why I have to drink alone? There are too many beautiful women who need attention in Café Sabra tonight. I can’t split myself among all of them. Get your lazy ass down here!

I could hear laughter and talking in the background. Okay, okay Moshe, I responded, smiling to myself. It was always good to hear from Moshe. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to drop my anatomy book on the floor and join my best friend at the café, but I didn’t relish a low grade, or facing my father’s disappointed looks, so I restrained myself and answered, You know I have that damn test tomorrow.

Screw your test, there are some hot women here!

Suddenly the phone seemed to explode in my hand, reverberating from the loudest blast I had ever heard. The talking and laughter turned to screams and sounds of confusion. For a moment I held the phone dumbly, then started to cry out, Moshe, Moshe!

When I got no response, my adrenalin kicked in; I dropped the phone, jammed my feet into the first pair of shoes I saw, and dashed to my car. Speeding as fast as traffic would allow toward the café, I heard sirens pierce the night as emergency vehicles began converging from different directions. I figured that we were all bound for the same place. Just as I was about to cross an intersection an ambulance going at top speed, lights flashing, cut me off. Pulling up sharply, I barely avoided hitting it and then continued on in its wake, tailing it closely, as it swerved from one lane to another toward the site of the explosion.

Even before I slammed on my brakes, I saw that the police had already cordoned off the area around the café with that ominous yellow emergency tape. Shards of glass and splintered wood were everywhere. Surveying the scene increased the fear that I felt for Moshe, and a sudden feeling of nausea hit me like a punch in the stomach. I practically flew out of the car and ran to the first officer I saw. I tried to get his attention and ask him about Moshe, but he wouldn’t answer me. He only acknowledged me by barking, Stay back, stay back, as he attempted to keep a path clear for emergency personnel to enter what was left of the building. While I looked around for a place to slip through the yellow tape, my heart beat so rapidly that I could feel it in my throat. Two emergency workers brushed passed me as they carried a woman out on a stretcher. Her face and hair were covered with blood. I followed them to the ambulance and waited while they slipped the stretcher carefully into its slot, then I turned to the medical technician closest to me and pleaded, Hey listen man, my friend Moshe, he’s about five foot ten, real thin, with brown hair and eyes, have you seen him?

He glanced at me for a split second and yelled: What? He was hurrying, and seemed annoyed.

I raised my voice above the din of the sirens, the screams of the injured, and the voices of some of their relatives who had begun to arrive and repeated my question. Have you seen my friend? Once more, I blurted out a description of Moshe.

Again, he briefly turned towards me, his eyes purposeful and lacking emotion. I haven’t brought out anyone who fits that description. We’re getting the live ones out first, fast as we can. You’ll have to look around! Then he climbed into the driver’s seat and quickly pulled away, siren blaring.

Rushing through the confusion from gurney to gurney, I stared at blood-stained faces, hoping to find that one face that was so familiar to me. Finally, I saw an unguarded area near the building and dashed into the rubble. Immediately, before my eyes could focus on anything inside, an officer blocked my way and demanded:

You’re not wearing a badge. Show me some I.D.

In less than two minutes, I was back outside. I continued waiting and leaning over the tape with the rest of the distraught and fearful friends, relatives, and onlookers who now crowded around what remained of Café Sabra. Each time someone was brought out, everyone would race over to check and see if it was his or her loved one or friend. I felt terrible for the wounded and the suffering but hoped that somehow Moshe had walked out before I got there, or at least that he would be one of the lucky ones that would make it out injured but alive. As time went on, I became more anxious and disheartened. I kept hearing the ambulance driver’s words over and over in my head, We’re getting the live ones out first.

Suddenly I felt someone pull my arm, and I whirled around hoping to see Moshe—only to see his mother and father. Terror and misery were reflected in their faces. Moshe’s mother whispered, David, in a soft pleading tone, as if there was something I could do to assuage her pain. Then she exhaled slowly and leaned for a few moments on my arm. I felt so sorry for his parents, and yet there was nothing I could say to them. We just stood huddled together, with leaden hearts, in an uneasy silence—waiting and moving back and forth in unison as each stretcher was brought out. The time between stretchers lengthened. Finally, they brought out the last of the injured … and Moshe was not among them.

The next day, I found myself staring at my best friend’s stark rough-hewn coffin. I couldn’t believe that Moshe was really inside it. I wanted to shout Moshe get up and let’s get the hell out of here! But I passed the closed wooden box slowly and mechanically and took my place with the other mourners on a sandy hillside in the graveyard. We were told that a Palestinian suicide bomber had entered the club and detonated explosives that were attached to his body. Moshe and fifteen other young Israelis in the downtown café had been killed.

I couldn’t concentrate during the funeral. People crying, beautiful words being said about Moshe by his brother, it was all a blur. The pain I felt in losing a friend, the consciousness that it could have been me, and the realization of the closeness of death all caused that detached, preoccupied feeling that wouldn’t allow me to focus, for any concrete length of time, on the ceremony. Vignettes of our growing up together played themselves out in my thoughts.

Moshe moved next door when we were both four years old. Since that time my life had been inextricably entwined with his. I watched us, in my mind’s eye, when we were about seven years old as we ran out of the bathroom and into the garden gasping for air and coughing. We ran so fast I’m sure we looked like we had been shot out of a cannon. I pictured us, at the beginning of our escapade, scheming to make an experiment, carefully closing the bathroom door to ensure privacy and pouring everything we could find in the medicine chest into our special concoction in the sink. Then, stunned, we watched as smoke actually rose from the bowl and the foulest-smelling stuff in the world appeared in the basin. Moshe and I shoved each other aside, each of us anxious to be the first one out the door and into breathable air, and we ran into the garden like we were being chased by wolves.

My father watched our coughing, sputtering arrival from over his newspaper. He quickly put it down on his seat and headed into the house. His nose probably led him to the right room. Evidently, upon entering the bathroom, he was not pleased or amused. Collecting us from the garden where we were still recuperating, he ushered us—rather roughly as I remember—into the house, sat us down, and had a serious talk with us, telling us that we had created a chemical reaction and could have been killed by the fumes. He stressed how disappointed he was in our behavior. Then he stopped talking, looked over his glasses at us, and frowned. The clock in his study ticked loudly, and we all seemed to sit there in silence listening to it for hours. Then, saying in measured tones I’ll be right back, he left us to contemplate what fate was to befall us. Our imaginations rendered us speechless. After ascertaining that our concoction wasn’t truly poisonous, he returned and instructed, Go clean it up. That was, as I look back on it now, an ingenious punishment. Actually, it might have been a turning point in my life. For it was after that incident that my interests changed from the chemical to the biological sciences.

Suddenly, a well-placed nudge from my mother, followed by a stern and impatient look, insured that I would come back to reality and participate in a funeral prayer called the Kaddish. As soon as the prayer was over, I drifted away again into the safety of my memories.

I thought back to the time when Moshe and I were eight years old and we tried to throw a Frisbee in my backyard. Neither one of us could throw or catch the thing with any precision. We did more arguing about who didn’t know how to throw and who couldn’t catch than we did playing. When it landed on the roof, we dragged an old wooden ladder out of the garage and with a great deal of difficulty set it against the house. My mother was working in the kitchen, and when a shadow fell over her cutting board, she looked up to see me climbing past the kitchen window, closely followed by Moshe. I heard her scream through the closed window and nearly fell off the ladder. She made it outside in record time; grabbed Moshe first, by his pants, pulled him down, and then reached for me. What ensued then, according to my recollection, was not pleasant. My mother reminded us of that incident many times. It grew more humorous, for Moshe and me, as it receded into the past.

The rabbi, a short slight man with gold-rimmed glasses and a long salt-and-pepper beard, was now saying words that seemed familiar to me. As I listened more closely, I realized that it was one of my favorite psalms, the twenty-third:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…

As the funeral ceremony continued, I heard the Rabbi praying el Maleh Rahamim. Then I retreated again into the shelter of my mind to relive the time when we were in high school and the swimming coach made fun of Moshe because he didn’t like to dive. So, deciding that he needed a few days rest from swimming class, we poured detergent into the pool, creating one large bubble bath. They never found out who did it.

Throughout the years, Moshe and I continually asked each other’s opinions—on everything from women to video equipment. How was I to fill the void in my life that was created by his death? I felt sorrier for myself at that moment than I did for Moshe.

Also creeping into my thoughts that day was the suicide bomber. Seething anger toward him rose inside of me. How could he do what he did? He was our age. He had his whole life ahead of him. Didn’t he want to have a lover, travel and see the world, just go to the beach, and sense all of the blue-sky, soft-breeze things that make life worthwhile? How hopeless, how distraught he must have been to kill himself. I couldn’t understand him. True, life for the Palestinians could not be easy in the West Bank or Gaza or Lebanese Refugee Camps or wherever they lived. Yet to use your body as a weapon to kill innocent people took a state of mind that I could not comprehend.

All of a sudden there was silence at the gravesite, a silence that drew my attention. A few of Moshe’s closest relatives had already taken a shovel full of dirt and spread it upon the coffin. Now Moshe’s father was standing next to me, honoring me by handing me the shovel. I quickly took it and began to lift some of the soil from that dusty windswept hill and drop it over the coffin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw other friends and relatives come up to me in an effort to take over, but I continued to take shovel after shovel of that dry, pebble-strewn dirt and cover the grave. I didn’t pay attention to anyone, and I refused to relinquish the shovel. Through stinging eyes, I concentrated on the job at hand. When I was finished, and the grave was well covered, I lay the shovel on the ground and walked away. My mother called me, but I didn’t turn around. I wanted and needed to be alone. Actually, I wandered for about an hour thinking and trying to make sense of it all while absentmindedly searching the ground for the perfect stone. When I found it, I went back to the deserted burial site and just stood there for a while feeling the wind as it blew hard against my body; and then I placed my stone carefully upon the grave.

As I turned to leave, I felt my emotions begin to seep back into my consciousness. They fluctuated from guilt to anger and back again. I should have been with Moshe in the café, where I might have seen what was coming and saved us both or given him some kind of first aid to prevent his dying. I blamed myself. My feelings of anger constantly changed direction. They flowed toward God, moved to the suicide bomber, lingered a while on Moshe for not saving himself, and then washed back over me for failing him.

My parents had a different reaction to Moshe’s death. They were involved and lived much more in the moment. They cried with Moshe’s parents and hugged them. My mother made all kinds of cakes and sweets. The smell of baking rugelach and honey cakes filled our house for days. They all sat shiva together. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of detached surrealism that enveloped me, and about which I felt a certain amount of guilt. I moved apart from everyone as if I were wrapped in a cloud. I took long walks and stiff drinks.

Chapter Two

About two months after Moshe was killed, my father, a somewhat well-known philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University, called me into his study. This was not a good sign. Family business with any joy attached to it was always discussed around the kitchen table in full view of an array of my mother’s African-Violet-filled window boxes and the cheerful but messy look of postcards and messages held onto the refrigerator by an assortment of mismatched magnets. Ever since I could remember, the study talk was always bad news. Some of the subjects discussed there, which tend to stand out in my memory, were a fight I’d had in elementary school, several not-so-sparkling grades on report cards, a couple of missed high school classes, and, recently, a lecture on the evils of drinking alcohol.

David, sit down, my father said with one of those gracious smiles that you reserve for business associates. I sat. Ever since I had grown to my full height, a little over six feet, my father made sure that we were both sitting down for any serious conversations. He was about 5’7 with thinning brown hair tinged with grey, penetrating dark brown eyes that always seemed to mirror his inner control and seriousness, and a small silver and brown goatee. I’ve been thinking, he continued, about your future. I know that you want to go to medical school, and I’ve decided that you will not go here in Israel. I’ve spoken to a few of my colleagues in Paris and arranged for you to attend medical school there next year. You can do your 30 days in the Army Reserves in late spring or early summer so that you can leave in August."

After he finished speaking, he sat back in his chair with one of those okay, congratulate me; I’ve-done-something-wonderful smiles upon his face. I was doubtful, even though adjusting to a new language would not be a problem. Along with forcing violin lessons on us, he had seen to it that both my sister and I were fluent in French. He had accomplished this by holding various prizes over our heads. I agree. It would be very nice for you to play on that soccer team, he had once said to me, so as soon as you read La Chanson de Roland and answer a few questions about it, you can sign up. I struggled valiantly through La Chanson de Roland, with my trusty Larousse dictionary by my side, and got to join the team two weeks after practice had already begun.

Yet Paris … for a long period of time … away from my friends and family … things I knew and understood. I wasn’t so sure that it was a good idea.

David, he broke into my thoughts, I know what you are thinking. I’ve arranged for you to be very comfortable. You will stay with one of my friends, Dr. Martin Weinstein, and his wife Sarah. They are both professors at the Sorbonne, and live in a great … here he hesitated … rather good-sized apartment on Rue de l’Isly in the center of everything in Paris. Now that their son has gotten married, they have a spare bedroom. Do you know how hard it is to find good accommodations in Paris? I know that you will appreciate this wonderful opportunity. He paused and fixed his eyes upon my face with a look that meant, the accolades: lay them on! All I could manage was a feeble smile. This was a lot to digest, plus I had absolutely no part in planning this wonderful future for myself.

Martin will help you to acclimate to your new surroundings, he said, as he stood up. Just a guess on my part, but the conversation was now over. A paternal hand patted my shoulder, and I was alone in the room.

I remained seated in the study for a while after he left, mulling over the implications of what he had said. I sensed that Moshe’s death had something to do with his decision. Yet I had grown up with the attitude of uncertainty that pervades Israel and was used to it. I didn’t want to go to a completely different culture. The thought of living with my father’s old friends in what probably would turn out to be a small Paris apartment and being introduced to the Paris scene by them didn’t seem very enticing. At least at home, I knew the one university professor that I lived with during holidays and some vacations. I knew his, shall we say, quirks and moods, which fortunately were ameliorated by my mother’s cajoling sense of humor and lively personality.

My mother had moved to Israel from the United States in the early seventies to work on a Kibbutz. She was young and idealistic like many of the other residents of the Kibbutzim. While attending classes at the university, she met my father and entered his life by storm. Teacher was completely enthralled by student. Her bright blue eyes, light brown hair, and good figure combined with her upbeat, positive attitude captivated him. She loosened his young stuffy self up a bit from what I’ve heard; but according to my sister and me, she left the job half done.

My sister Ruth, who is four years older than I, went to college in the States and then stayed there. She fell in love with New York when we visited my mother’s family during a summer vacation. After a lot of begging and pleading, my parents allowed her to apply to Columbia University, and that was where she met Josh. Ruth has my father’s straight dark hair, my mother’s blue eyes, and she’s in pretty good shape. So she was always popular with the guys. I guess whomever she dated overlooked her damn bossiness. Josh, poor slob, didn’t have a chance once she decided to marry him. She married Josh the day after she graduated, but I think she really married New York. It wasn’t long before they made an uncle out of me. I have two twin five-year-old nephews that I don’t see very often. Since my sister left Israel, I have been the beneficiary of all the attention that used to be spent on her plus the attention that was normally spent on me. This surplus of attention tends to be a bit wearing, so I was happy to be living at the university. As I sat thinking in my father’s study and breathing in the scent of leather and old books, I also thought of Rivka and how she would take the news that I would be going to medical school in Paris.

Rivka and I met while we were doing our compulsory army service. I soon discovered that she had a great sense of humor and a love of life that was infectious. We kind of gravitated toward the same group of friends; Moshe was among them, and we often went out all together. Not only did I like Rivka’s self-confident, outgoing personality and her outlook on life, which mirrored my let’s try that, it sounds like fun attitude, but she was about five feet ten inches tall, had this great athletic body, legs that didn’t stop, and really short blonde hair that went well with her beautiful green eyes. Slowly but surely we found ourselves separating from group outings. It was always exciting being with Rivka, and I looked forward to our dates.

Yet from Rivka’s point of view our relationship was stalled and stuck. I was not committing to the long term. Since I was the stumbling block according to all concerned, friends and family alike, I had to come up with a reason. The first one that I thought of seemed to serve well. I said that because I had years of medical school ahead of me, thoughts of marriage and a family should be relegated to the back burner. Rivka’s answer to that was along the lines of, well that shouldn’t prevent us from becoming engaged. Engaged! That very word instilled fear into my heart. It sounded so permanent. Rivka didn’t like my response to that idea either. I merely asked, Do people still do that?

After a sigh of exasperation, she replied that they did.

Well, who wants long engagements? I countered.

She seemed to look right through me with narrowing eyes as she assessed her chances of success. Then she temporarily dropped the subject. I used this reprieve to do some quick soul searching; and since I didn’t come up with any answers as to why I couldn’t commit to Rivka, and given that—try as I might—I couldn’t get in touch with my subconscious, I completely dismissed the question of commitment from my conscious mind. This commitment thing, though, seemed to linger in the background of our relationship casting somewhat of a shadow; but for the time being, we both chose to ignore its presence and continued on much as before.

I dreaded having to tell Rivka that I would be leaving Israel to continue my studies in Paris and decided to take her to one of our favorite restaurants to break the news. I waited until after we had a few glasses of wine and finished dessert. Then I courageously ploughed right into the subject.

Rivka, I began, my father is insisting that I go to medical school in Paris this fall. He’s absolutely adamant. I reached for her hand and lowered my voice. I hate to leave you and all my friends, but I don’t see a way out.

Rivka frowned while I was speaking, then suggested, Maybe if you keep telling him how much you don’t want to go, you’ll get him to change his mind. Eyeing me suspiciously, she continued, Also, you could refuse to go, at least until I graduate next year, and then I could go with you.

I’m afraid that if I balk at going it would create a rift in our family, and I really don’t have enough money to go it alone, I responded. An awkward silence settled between us at the table and stayed with us as we took a walk after dinner. Our evening ended much earlier than usual.

Although Rivka didn’t take the news of my leaving very well, she knew my father and probably realized that opposing him, at that point in time, was useless. I think her philosophy was to make sure that we had such a great time together over the summer that when I was scheduled to leave, I would either decide to rebel and stay or give her an engagement ring. I was definitely the beneficiary of that line of thinking, as it removed some of the tension from our relationship. We were then able to make the most of that summer in Israel, the summer before I left for Paris.

Chapter Three

After graduation in early June, I fulfilled my military obligation in the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force. I was sent to Nablus in the West Bank and found myself in the thick of the Intifada. This was the first time that I had been assigned to serve in one of the occupied territories, and it was an experience that I’ll always remember. I could sense the hostility of the people toward members of the IDF as I walked or rode down the streets of that beautiful old city. The hills of Nablus afforded us spectacular views of tree-covered Mt. Gerizim and the stark, imposing Mt. Ebal. The city was set like a many-faceted jewel between them. A green-domed mosque, which glittered like emeralds when the sun shone, and a tall clock tower seemed to stand guard above the city. Below them, narrow pathways, some covered with vaulted arches, an old Roman amphitheater, and Turkish baths gave the whole area an ancient feel. Gray and white apartment buildings were clustered as if on descending steps on the hillsides. Some neighborhoods housed the better-educated, more sophisticated Palestinians. Others housed the working class, and there were certain areas that were primarily populated by the poor. Yet all residents seemed to have the same serious beleaguered look.

My first few days there were spent enforcing the curfew from dusk till dawn. It was said that suicide bombers were coming from Nablus, and it was up to us to prevent them from acquiring explosives and then sneaking into Israel. The directive came down from our commanding officers that people who broke the curfew were to be dealt with severely. If we were tough, then militants would be less likely to take a chance on coming out of their homes, and we would be able to prevent trouble before it occurred. Severely in some cases was translated to mean the breaking of arms and legs with the butts of our rifles. That activity would put a person out of operation for quite a while. It seemed like pretty harsh punishment, but the actual interpretation of severely depended on the circumstances of the offense, and therefore had to be left up to the individual soldier.

My patrols were routine at first. Although, I didn’t like feeling the distrust and hatred that I sensed coming from ordinary people in Nablus, I tried to remind myself that my presence there was helping to protect other Israelis like Moshe.

It was a warm Thursday afternoon in June when things changed. Three Israeli soldiers on patrol asked to see the identity papers of two Palestinian men as they were moving an old refrigerator. While the men argued with the soldiers, some shots were fired from an adjacent building. The soldiers fired back in the general direction of the shots, and a